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THE UNIVERSITY 
OF ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


From the, collection of | 
Julius Doerner, Chicago 
Purchased, 1918. | 


612.394 
R390 








| ; * ae tet Riss: 
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in 2021 with funding from — 
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ON 


PICO) TO 


menovunee OF SIX CANTOR LECTURES DELIV- 
Pai) BEPORKE. IH SOCIETY OF ARTS, 


BY 


BENJAMIN W. RICHARDSON, M.A., M.D., F.R.S., 


FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, AND HONORARY 
PHYSICIAN TO THE ROYAL LITERARY FUND. 


NEW YORK: 


The National Temperance Society and Publication House, 
58 READE STREET. 


—_—s= 


1876. 


Copyright. 
J. N. STEARNS, Pusiisuinc AGENT. 


Joun Ross & Co., PrinTers AND STEREOTYPERS, 27 Rose Srreet, N. Y. 


Ab Meo Pal ebh 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 





HE course of Cantor Lectures on Alcohol 

here published were prepared at the re- 
quest of the Council of the Society of Arts, and 
were delivered before the Society in the months 
of November, December, January, and February 
last. 

I do not remember to have delivered any Lec- 
tures that have attracted so much earnest public 
attention, and in publishing them in this cheap 
form Iam responding to a request too general to 
admit of hesitation or delay on my part. With 
the exception of the transference of the tabular 
matter into an Appendix, the introduction of a 
few minor and verbal corrections, and the addi- 
tion of a page of learned and interesting passages 
kindly communicated to me by Mr. Stanford, 
Rie lab ge tne) Lectures’ are published as 


they were spoken. 


6 Introductory Note. 


In this form I found them favorably received 
by the large audiences who honored me with 
their attention, and- I .am,-therefore, led. to hope 
for them equal favor with the larger public to 
whom they are now addressed. 

It remains for me only to add, that though I 
have spoken out freely the lessons I have learned 
from nature, no pledge binds me, and no society 
banded to propagate particular views and tenets 
claims my allegiance. I stand forth simply as 


an interpreter cf natural fact and law. 


I2 HINDE STREET, W. 
May I, 1875. 


COIN INES 





Preface, by Dr. Willard Parker, ° aPipies Ms 


I, 


On Alcchol, in reiation to some of its varied services to 
Mankind, . . : 2 : ; : 5 ‘ Fs 


II, 
The Alcohol Group of organic Bodies—Actions of diffe- 
rent Alcohols, . : ‘ : : , : 
AYE 


The Influence of Common or Ethylic Alcohol on Animal 
Life—The.-primary physiological Action of Alcohol, . 


IV. 


The Position of Alcohol asa Food—Effects of Alcohol on 


the Animal Temperature—Hygienic Lessons, , : 
7 


PAGE 


13-40 


“41-68 


69-63 


94-122 


8 Contents. 


Vv. 
PAGE 
The Secondary Action of Aitcohol on the Animal Func- 
tions, and on the Physical Deteriorations of Structure 
incident to its Excessive Use, ‘ ‘ RA - 123-148 
VI, 
Physical Deteriorations from Aicohol (cosd¢inued)—Influ- 
ence of Alcohol on the Vital Organs—Mental Phe- 
nomena induced by its Use—Summary, . ° « 149-179 


APPENDIX, ° : . ° . ° . I8I-I90 


eee A Oiae 


I am very glad to learn that the “ Course 
of Cantor Lectures on Alcohol,” delivered by 
B. W. Richardson, M.D., F.R.S., before the 
Edinburgh Society of Arts, is about to be 
presented to the American public. They are 
clear, scientific, and couched in language free 
from technicalities and easily understood by 
all. { have seen no work on this subject so 
satisfactory as these lectures, which present 
it without “special pleading”; I hope they 
will be carefully read in every household. 
Aiming as they do to impart knowledge 
based on sound scientific principles, to the 
public mind, they cannot fail to awaken it to 
a realization of the evil that is being wrought 
by this agency, most destructive to human 


life and usefulness. 


ite Preface. 


Alcohol has no place in the healthy system, 
but is an “irritant poison,’ producing a dis- 
eased condition of body and mind. Statistics 
show that ten per cent. of the annual number 
of deaths in this country are due to alcohol; 
that fully thirty-five per cent. of our insane, 
are so either directly or indirectly from its 
use; and that from seventy-five to ninety 
per cent. of the inmates of our penal and 
pauper institutions owe their condition to 
its influence. Besides this, we find that forty- 
five per cent. of the inmates of our asylums 
for idiots, are the offspring of parents ad- 
dicted to drink. 

Destroying as its use does, the will, the 
judgment, and the moral sense, may we not: 
with propriety consider it a cause of that 
low state of public and private integrity which 
permits, even in our very midst, the forma- 
tion of those shameful combinations to de- 
fraud and steal commonly known as “rings”? 

Now the question meets us, how can this 
destruction of lives valuable to the state in 


their productiveness, be azrested, and a better 


Preface. II 


condition of things be brought about, so that 
the burden of our taxation be lightened—tax- 
ation of which the great proportion goes to 
support our drinking-classes and their off- 
spring. Let public intelligence and- public 
morals be so educated that the cause of these 
things be appreciated, and so appreciated that 
they shall insist on laying the axe at the 
root of the tree, instead of lopping off the 
branches, by pveventzng a trafhe in alcohol, 
instead of punishing the unfortunate victims 
OP its Ase. 

In Pennsylvania, in the year 1867, for every 
fourteen dollars received from license fees, 
the State expended one hundred in the sup- 
port of the victims of alcohol; on principles 
ef political economy, is this sound legisla- 
tion? 

If the habitual use of distilled liquors in- 
crease as rapidly within the opening century 
as it has during the one just ending, how sad 
the outlook! Ican discern nothing in the fu- 
ture but a wreck of national honor, and the 


sinking to a lower standard of civilization 


12 Preface. 


and morality, unless public sentiment in this 
regard be changed. As a means to this end, 
let me again express the hope that these 
lectures may be carefully read in every home 
in the land. 

WitLarD Parker, M.D., ete. 


ON ALCOHOL. 


GANTOR LECTURES. 





PRG RUE: I. 


ON ALCOHOL, IN RELATION TO SOME OF ITS VARIED 
SERVICES TO MANKIND. 


WE had before us a few weeks since an interest- 
ing national event. It was that of an archbishop 
and a minister of the Crown speaking almost at 
the same time, on one of the most important sub- 
jects of the day, viz., the part performed by alco- 
hol on the national stage as it is set forth and 
played upon at this period of our history. The 
distinguished prelate took naturally for his view of 
the subject the moral influence of alcohol, and from 
this point denounced alcohol, in whatever form 
it presents itself for human consumption, in terms 
as eloquent as they were persuasive and forcible. 
The statesman took for his view of the subject the 
financial influence of alcohol; he gave a clear and 
by no means exaggerated estimate of the impor- 
tance of an agent which, 1n these kingdoms, rests 


on an invested capital of not less than one hundred 
13 


I4 On Alcohol. 


and seventeen millions of money; and submitted, 
in conclusive terms, an argument, which, contrasted 
with that of the prelate, means that an agent so 
commercially potential cannot be materially inter- 
fered with in the present stage of our civilization, 
whatever may be the result of its influence on the 
community for good or for evil. 

To the utterances of the church and of the legis- 
lative chamber we are accustomed to listen with 
such regard, that when any representative of 
cither body speaks, we turn an car almost auto- 
matically, and accept what is said as commanding 
respect, even though we dissent from the opinions 
that are expressed. No one therefore who stands 
out of these spheres can hope to obtain a hearing 
extended so far and wide, and equally authorita- 
tive. 

And yet there is scope for honest utterance on 
another side of the alcohol question. The prelate 
and the legislator can hardly have more intimate 
conversance with the influence of alcoho! than the 
physician and man of science. To the moral view 
of the question and to the legislative may well 
therefore be added the physical, and it isto this I 
shall try to direct public attention in these dis- 
courses, conscious, fully, of the disadvantages un- 
der which I should labor were it not for the coun- 
tenance and support I shall hope to receive from 
you. 

The strain running through all these lectures, in 
however diverse a manner the subject-matter of 
them may be pursued, will then be simply this: 
Of what physical value has alcohol been to man? 


The Term “Alcohol.” 15 


of what value is it to man? We know it is of no 
value to any other animal, and thus we limit our 
inquiry at once to the highest order of the ani- 
mate series of natural development, or of natural 
creation. 

In the studies that are in this sense to be under- 
taken, I will not fail to remember the injunction 
placed upon me to speak simply and plainly; not 
to offend pride of learning by too great simplicity 
of statement, nor yet to embarrass humility by a 
display of technical language and of the abstruse 
technical reasoning, for which the subject in hand 
affords so much opportunity. As far as possible I 
will strive to be plainness itself, and that, not only 
in mode of expression, but in matter of it; I mean 
in truthfulness of expression, as far as I am guided 
by the light that enables me to see what is nearest 
to the truth. 

I shall propose in this description to glance first 
at the value of alcohol to man in a general sense ; 
that is to say, to its value as an agent useful for 
other purposes than asa fluid to be imbibed. From 
this I shall be naturally led to consider its action, 
physically, on man, and its use as a fluid consumed 
with, and, according to common acceptation, as a 
food. Lastly, I shall be brought to treat upon its 
secondary action on the vital functions, physical 
and mental, i.e., on the deteriorations of structure 
and derangements of function, which may follow 
its use. 


THE TERM ‘‘ ALCOHOL. 


The first employment of the word alcohol is ob- 


16 On Alcohol. 


scurely recorded. Bartholomew Parr, one of the 
most learned of our scientific classics, taking the 
usual derivation of the word as from the Arabic 
A’l-ka-hol, a subtile essence, says 1t was originally 
employed to designate an impalpable powder, used 
by the Eastern women to tinge the hair and the 
margins of the eyelids. As this powder, viz., an 
ore of lead, was impalpable, the same name was 
given to other subtile powders, and then to the 
spirit of wine exalted to its highest purity and per- 
fection. 

The earliest systematic and truly scientific use 
of the term that I can discover is in Nicholas Le- 
mert’s ‘Course of Chemistry,’ published in 1698. 
There the word is used as a verb, “ to alcoholize,” 
and the definition of this is said to be “to reduce 
to alcohol, as when a mixture is beaten into an im- 
palpable powder.” The word, says Lemert, is also 
used to express a very fine spirit ; “thus the spirit 
of wine well rectified is called the alcohol of 
vine.” 

The word employed in this sense merely tells us 
of a refined fluid substance obtained by a subtile 
process of separation from a grosser substance. 
But it was not applied to the special fluid now un- 
der our consideration until long after that fluid had 
actually been separated. Then it was used as a 
supplementary term to the earlier terms, Venu 
adustum, Vinum ardens, Spiritus vint, Spiritus ar- 
dens, by which a spirit obtained from the grosser 
fluid, by the action of fire, was known and de- 
scribed. 


Fermentation of Wine. 17 
FERMENTATION OF WINE. 


We must now go back to a much earlier study, 
viz., to the study of the primitive fluid, from which 
the subtile spirit was derived. In the history of 
the production of alcohol we gather, in fact, the 
use of two of the most prominent words of our 
modern language: fermentation and distillation. 
They each mark distinct progressive epochs in 
natural science. 

The term fermentation brings us in contact with 
the primitive fluid. It leads us to ask how, from 
the vegetable world, by change or mutation of its 
matter, anew product wasevolved? The origin of 
this procedure is so old we have no possible means 
of tracing it. Before ever the word chemistry, or 
the science which that word implies, was dreamed 
of, this process of obtaining the crude liquor, from 
which alcohol was ultimately extracted, was in 
active operation. By some accidental discovery it 
had been started by human hands, and the act of 
first lighting and reproducing fire was hardly a 
less wonderful development of the higher faculties 
resident in man, than was this discovery. The 
operation itself, originally, was, we may presume, 
very simple. As there is a spontaneity in nature 
to produce fire, as for instance, when a metal like 
iron strikes a stone, so there is a spontaneity of 
fermentation in vegetable matter—especially in the 
juices of fresh ripe fruits in warm weather—which 
fact being observed, first, from the motion induced 
in the fluids, and secondly from the crude products 
that were left, would lead naturally to the contem- 


18 On Alcohol. 


plation of the steps of the process, to its easy, arti- 
ficial, and more perfect development, to a method 
of separating and purifying the products, and after- 
wards of tasting and using them. 

The products of fermenting fruits were limited 
to four: an active air which escapes freely ; a froth 
or yeast which floats above as a crust; a heavy 
mass or lees which sinks to the bottom; anda fluid 
which remains apart. These portions, each read- 
ily separable, indeed, separable of themselves, were 
soon understood in respect of their virtues. That 
invisible air, which escapes so actively, is a deadly 
vapor or miasm; that froth, unpleasant to the 
taste, is an active promoter of the motion that 
springs from the fruit; those lees are like sediment 
from muddy water, excrementitious, to be cast 
away ; but that remaining subtile fluid, to the pal- 
ate so grateful, to the senses so exhilarating, to the 
heart so forcing, to the intellect so exciting or so 
deadening :—let it be brought forth in the daintiest . 
cups the handicrafts can fashion from the rude 
earth! It is not, to the savage, a mortal thing at 
all. Water flows in open streams, a common 
liquid, at which cattle and creeping things may 
drink; this must be the drink of the superior in- 
telligences from whom the savage came! It lifts 
the man who takes it into a higher sphere of. life, 
or it degrades him to the lowest. It introduces 
him, as it were, to a new human organization that 
is not to be a passing phenomenon, but, for good 
or for evil, is to remain for ages. 

The fluid is wine. 

The discovery 1s an epoch surpassed by none 


Fermentation of Wine. I 
9 


other, in the history of one portion of man- 
kind, and the early dawning civilizations show 
their wonder at it in their mythology. Egypt 
claims the invention for her god Osiris, Greece for 
Bacchus, and Rome for Saturn. The Greeks, most 
ambitious to be connected with the origin, assert 
that the very name belongs to them, for the drink 
was first discovered in AStolia by Orestheus, the 
son of Deucalion, whose grandson, Oeneus, was so 
called from Oinos, which was the old name of the 
vine. Or else the discovery was by Oeneus him- 
self, who first pressed the rich grapes. Thus 
Oinos—oinon—vinum—wine. Then by these na- 
tions the praises of wine and of the wine gods, one 
and all, were sung into the later times. The first 
of the Roman poets, excited to his labor by Mzce- 
nas, the friend of Augustus, who would that the 
vineyards should flourish, is thus prompted to in- 
voke Bacchus, under the name of Pater Lenzeus— 


“ Hither, ch, Leneus—Father Leneus, come. 
By thee with heavy viny harvest crowned, 
The pasture flourishes. In the full vats 
The vintaze foams. 

Hither Lenzus, Father Lenzus come, 
And, wiih thy buskins off, in the new wine, 
Stain, thou, thy naked legs even with me.” 


And thus on until our own cra, in which—alas for 
the mutability of even god-like virtues !—under 
the atle of “The Worship of Bacchus,” our vete- 
ran artist, George Cruikshank, has turned the 
praises of his brother artist, Virgil, into scorn, and 
has transfurmed. Puter Lenzeus the wine giver, 


20 Ou Alcohol. 


into the destroyer of every civilization over which 
he has become enthroned. 

It is worthy here of special remark that the in- 
vention of wine was local on the planet, and that it 
came from some centre of the ancient world lying 
near to those points from whence our modern civi- 
lization took its rise. For when that civilization 
concentrated itself into bands or armies, or navies, 
for the purpose of discovering new portions of the 
earth, where other savage nations, as they are 
called, dwell, it found the wine god, the wine cup, 
and the wine equally unknown. A good three- 
quarters of the old world knew no more of wine 
than of the people who invented it, until they were 
taught to know it—then they learned about it fast 
enough. 

The practice of exciting fermentation and of ob- 
taining the coveted fermented liquor once known, 
the knowledge was extended, until from varied 
vegetable substances wine became a product ex- 
tracted by an art that was successful, however 
rude. The discovery of the ferment, that is to 
say of the body that would produce fermentation, 
was sufficient to set in mutation or intestine mo- 
tion a whole series of fermentable vegetable sub- 
stances, and to extend the manufacture of various 
vinous fluids to an unlimited degree. From the 
expressed juice of the grape the transition was 
easy to other juicy fruits, such as the mulberry, 
the apple, the pear, the peach: from these again 
to those juices which exude from trees, as from 
the Eastern palm-tree; and from these again to 
such similar looking substances as manna and 


Fermentation of Whine. 21 


honey. From fruits, moreover, it was an easy 
transition to seeds, and from seeds that were soft 
and succulent to seeds that were hard and of the 
character of what we now call grain. 

From all these varied sources of fermentable 
substances there was produced for ages the fluid 
containing the basis of alcohol. Its most common 
name was wine, though the term was modified by 
adjective additions signifying sometimes its color, 
sometimes the place where it was made or mar- 
keted. Thus were introduced the white and red 
wines, the Vino Tinto and the golden unctuous 
Vino Greco. Even after the discovery (of which 
I shall soon again speak) of the existence of a dis- 
tinct essence or spirit in wine, the original fluid 
held pre-eminence over all other strong drinks, and 
in the early and middle stages of civilization in 
Europe the number of wines that were used ex- 
ceeded anything we now have in commonuse. In 
the Appendix to these lectures, there will be found, 
in a table—Table I.—lsts of ancient Roman wines 
arranged in nine groups. 

Asamatter of some historical interest, itis worth 
a moment or two to touch on the special qualities 
of a few of those vinous drinks. 

Certain of the ancient Roman wines of the first 
group were home wines. The Falernian, one of 
these, was, it is believed, something like our modern 
Madeira, and was not commonly used until it was 
ten years old. After it was twenty years old it 
affected the body unfavorably, causing headache. 
This was the experience of Galen. 

Other wines were foreign. Chian, also called 


23 On Alcohol. 


the Ariusian, of which there were three varieties— 
austere, sweet, and intermediate—and the Lesbian, 
considered to be a diuretic, were of this kind. 

Some wines were named after their color, as 
white, dark, and red. The white were thought to 
be the thinnest and least heating ; the dark-colored 
and sweet the most nourishing; the red the most 
heating. 7 

Some, again, were named after qualities, of age, 
and the like: as old (Vetus); new (Novum); of the 
present year (Hornum); of three years (Trimum) ; 
mellow (Molle, Lene, Vetustate edentulum); rough 
(Asperum); pure (Merum); strong (Fortius). 

Certain wines, named Myndian, Halicarnassian, 
Rhodian, and Coan, were made with salt water. 
They were considered not to be intoxicating, but 
to promote digestion. 

Two wines, Cnidian and Adrian, were also me- 
dicinal wines. The first, it was believed, engen- 
dered blood and was at the same time a laxative; 
the second was diaphoretic. 

Mustum was a term applied to wine newly made, 
or the fresh juice of the grape. Protropum was the 
juice which runs from the grapes without pressing. 
Mulsum was a mixture of wine and honey. Sapa 
was Mustum boiled down to a third. Defrutum 
was Mustum reduced to half, and Carenum was 
the same reduced to a third. 

Passum was a sweet wine, prepared from grapes 
that had been dried in the sun. Passum creticum, 
also a sweet wine, 1s believed to have been the same 
as the wine which our own forefathers called Malm- 
sey; the wine in which the Duke of Clarence 


Fermentation of Wane. 23 


brother of Edward the Fourth, elected to be 
drowned. 

A wine called Murrhina, placed in the last group 
in the Appendix, hasa curious history. The Greeks 
had a wine of this kind, which consisted of pure 
wine perfumed with odorous substances. The 
Romans had a wine similarly named, which is sup- 
posed to have been wine mingled with myrrh. It 
was administered to those who were about to sutier 
torture, in order to intoxicate them and to remove 
the sense of suffering. 

The ancient wines retained their place probably 
until the end of the Middle Ages, but we have no 
reliable evidence bearing upon this point, 1f we ex- 
cept an occasional reference by some poet or phy- 
sician to the subject of winc. Very slowly the 
names, rather than the wines, changed generaily. 
The Roman conqueror who built his villa on our 
islands, and fitted it with so much taste and means 
of luxury, added to it his wine-cellar, in the manner 
he had been instructed by his forefathers, and from 
it took out his red and white and old wine, as we 
do now; boasting possibly of the vintage from 
which it was grown, and eloquent as to its age and 
perfect ripeness. If he had no old port, he had old 
Falernian or Passum; his rough and his sweet, his 
light and his heavy wines, the same as our connois- 
seur of to-day. But, perhaps, he knew a great 
deal more, in the way of fact about the vintages, 
than his modern follower. 

How the wines changed in name through the 
centuries will be gathered from the lists of the 
wines of Europe in use in the last century, collected 


24 On Alcohol. 


by the distinguished chemist Neumann, and detail- 
ed in the Appendix, Table II. 

Some of the wines medizeval and later derive ad- 
ditional names from peculiarities in themselves. 
Sec, from which we derive the name of the wine 
Sack, on which Sir John Falstaff so keenly enjoyed 
himself, means dry ; the wine being made from half 
dried grapes. Malmsey was called by the Italians 
“Manna alla bocca e balsamo al cervello ”’—‘“* Man- 
na to the mouth and balsam to the brain.” 

From the chemist of last century, Neumann, who 
has collected for us such a long lst of wines, we 
are supplied with a very instructive table of analy- 
ses showing the amount of spirit present in the 
different specimens. The wines he analysed are 
tabulated in alphabetical order. I believe his to 
be the first true chemical analyses that were ever 
made, on an extensive and comparative scale, of 
different wines, and if they indicate all the spirit in 
the wines named, it is clear that the amount of 
spirit in them was exceedingly small, when com- 
pared with what is present in the wines of the 
present day. Malmsey, the strongest of them, con- 
tained but about twelve per cent. of spirit, and 
sack a little more than half that amount. Falstaff 
might readily drink ata draught a pint of sack 
that contained rather less than seven and a half 
per cent. of spirit. 


BEER, 


The only other diluted rival of wine optained 
by fermentation was the liquid derived from corn. 
Tradition, active again in giving celestial origin 


Beer. 25 


to strong drinks, has assigned the introduction of 
the art of making this product first to Osiris, the 
divinity of Egypt, and afterwards to the goddess 
Ceres. The ‘luid thus produced became, in Saxon 
language, known as beer, bere, from barley, or 
perhaps from the Hebrew, dar, corn. Tacitus 
calls it Zythum. The Egyptians, it is said, made 
it first for the common folk that they too might 
receive the gift of Osiris. In its original state 
beer was what we would now call the sweet fluid 
or wort fresh from the vat, and untinctured with 
any additional substance. So it continued proba- 
bly until the ninth century, when it began to be 
treated with the /zpulus, or hop. The first men- 
tion of this plant is made by an Arabian, named 
Mesue, of about the year 850, but he does not refer 
to it in relation to beer. The hop not only flavored 
but tended to preserve the beer, and in a few cen- 
turies it became of general use. In the reign of 
Henry the Sixth the use of hops was for a time 
forbidden, on the ground that they spoiled the 
beer and rendered it dangerous. An order pro- 
hibiting hops and sulphur for beer was also made 
in the reign of Henry the Eighth. But the hops 
at last won their way. It is worthy of notice that 
Neumann, who analysed the beers of last century, 
as well as the wines, found that the beers contained 
an amount of spirit varying from 5 per cent. in the 
weakest, to 10.90 per cent. in the strongest kinds. 
The malt liquors of the last century were, it ap- 
pears from this, of much the same strength as 
those of the present. 

Thus in the history of alcohol the first step of 


26 On Alcohol. 


discovery was that of its production from vege- 
table matter by the process of fermentation. As 
so produced it was a mixture of that which we 
now call pure spirit, or alcohol, with water, and 
with small quantities of other extraneous substances 
of minor moment. 

On the nature of the fermentative change by 
which the juice of the fruit, or the exuded fluid of 
the plant or tree, or the seed or the sweet sugar, 
is transformed into the new product, speculation 
has been rife for a hundred years at least. In this 
day the atomic constitution of water, of alcohol, 
and of the substances which yield alcohol are 
known, and the atomic change of constitution that 
takes place 1s known; but the reason of the pro- 
cess 1s, according to my judgment, as httle under- 
stood as it was when the discussion began. Prob- 
ably, indeed, the latest theories that have been 
advanced are rather a retrogression, by a line of 
learned subticties, from the earlier views, than an 
approach to simplicity of truth. I do not, there- 
fore, venture to trouble you with any description 
on this head. One word I would add in the way 
of a guard against misuse of terms from assumed 
analogies. We often hear processes described as 
fermentative, which in truth have no relation, by 
any proved physical argument, with the true pro- 
cess of fermentation of vegetable matter connected 
with the production of wine. To take one exam- 
ple; we speak commonly of the zymotic or fer- 
mentative diseascs, applying the term to those 
maladies which, in the form of contagious fevers, 
become epidemic. Hence many are led to believe 


Distillation. 27 


that in these diseases there is in the body an 
actual fermentation tke that in wine or beer; a 
comparison no closer, according to our knowledge 
as it now actually exists, than might be instituted 
between the same process and the so called fer- 
ment of a mob when it assembles to give vent to 
its turbulent rage. 


DISTILLATION. 


I have said that for many centuries there was 
nothing known to mankind beyond the formation 
of a vinous fluid. At length a new process was 
brought to bear on wine, which simple as it is to 
us now, was in its early days, and for many long 
days afterwards, a wonder and a mystery. This 
was the simple act of distilling wine, and of obtain- 
ing from it by distillation a fine spirit containing 
no water. . The discovery of distillation of wine 
has been attributed to Albucasis, or Casa, an 
Arabian chemist and physician of the eleventh 
century. The evidence on this point is not very 
convincing. It is true that the refined body called 
spirit of wine began to be known in alchemical 
and Arabian schools about or soon atter the time 
of Casa, and from that circumstance, rather than 
from direct evidence derived from his works, the 
discovery has probably been imputed to him. 
However, it is historically correct that from the 
school of Albucasis the discovery sprang. The 
alchemists or adepts were conversant with pure 
spirit, and, says Boerhaave, when they had reduc- 
cd it to the utmost subtlety, they made use of it 
in the preparations of all their secret menstruums. 


28 On Alcohol, 


Distillation itself was probably an imitation of 
nature, for nature is ever distilling and condens- 
ing. In the cold, water condenses on the leaf and 
on the grass, as dew, and ascends as vapor in the 
sun. This process of raising water into a state of 
vapor by heat, and condensing it by cold, the 
simplest of immediate imitations of nature, would 
by easy transition pass to other liquids, and with 
special ease to that liquid which has rivalled water 
as a drink for man—wine. 

The pure spirit of wine in its earlier use was 
applied mainly to chemical and medicinal pur- 
poses, and indeed many centuries clapsed before 
the process of distillation became active for the 
production of those stronger drinks, which, under 
the name of “ spirits,’ are now in such common 
use in daily life. Brandy from dvenzen, to burn; 
thus Branntwein, brandy, is a comparatively late 
term in European literature. Gin, contracted 
from Geneva, is not to be found as signifying a 
spirituous drink in our vocabularies of two hun- 
dred years ago. The term rum is assigned to the 
native American peoples, who so designated the 
vinous spirit distilled from sugar; and whiskey 
(Celtic uzsge, water), though it may have been 
known as a distilled drink as long as Branntwein, 
has not been Anglicised, I believe, for more than 
a century and a half. Some further notes on this 
subject by Mr. Stanford will be found in the Ap- 
pendix. 

In the earlier modes of distillation the instru- 
ments used were simple but effective. They con- 
sisted of the furnace, the receptacle to the furnace, 


Distillation. 29 


the receiver which stood within the receptacle, 
and the alembic or condenser, which was made of 
tin or other metal. 

The ancient alembic, the use of which is still 
valued, was, in truth, a very scientific instru- 
nent, and caused a perfect collection of the dis- 
tiled fluid. The spirit from the crude wine 
ascended from a heated reservoir into a conical 
tube, and then downwards through a returning 
exit tube into a receiver. 

The adepts were, indeed, marvellously mechani- 
cal, and when we recall that they neither had cork 
nor elastic tubing, nor gas, we wonder by what 
clever devices they were so successful. They had 
many useful arts, I am sure, which we have im- 
properly forgotten, and which might with advan-- 
tage be revived. Some of their instruments, for a 
long time thought to be fanciful and useless, are 
being again considered of value. One of these 
was called a cohobator, and another called a cir- 
culator, in which they caused spirits to boil and 
distil, and condense and distil again, for months at 
atime. The fluids went round and round in the 
circulator like the wheel of fortune, and many an 
adept has looked upon his fortune as spinning in 
that wheel, from which the elixir of life and the 
philosopher’s stone were, in his ardent imagina- 
tion, to be evolved. 

To sum up, let us remember the four stages in 
the general history of alcohol, from the first to 
the time when it came strictly under analytical 
chemical observation ; and, in regard to common 
knowledge, to the present time. 


30 On Alcohol. 


(2.) The stage of manufacture of wine or beer 
hy fermentation. A stage extending from the 
earliest history until the time of the adepts, say 
about the eleventh century of the Christian era. 

(6.) A stage when there was distilled from the 
wine a lighter spirit calied, first, spirit of wine, and 
afterwards alcohol. 

(c.) A stage when this subtile or distilled spirit 
from wine was applied in its refined and pure state 
to the arts and to the sciences. . 

(dZ.) A stage when this same process of distilla- 
tion was applied to the production of alcoholic 
spirits for the use of man as spirituous drinks, 
under the names of brandy, gin, whiskey, rum,—a 
stage comparatively modern. 


USES OF WINE, 


We will, if you please, leave now, for a time, the 
consideration of wine and alcohol as drinks, and 
dwell briefly on the uses to which these fluids have 
been applied for other purposes. The study is 
peculiarly interesting, and I could casily carry 
you on during the whole course of these lectures 
with the narration of it. Unfortunately every 
word I have to say must be introduced into this 
hour, so that I can refer only to the salient points, 
and to a few only of these. 

From the first, the preservative or antiseptic 
quality of wine was recognised, and the fluid was 
employed for the preservation of animal and vege- 
table substances. The Roman butchers, who, like 
our modern butchers, sold their fresh and their 
salted meats, prepared their salted flesh in the fol- 


Uses of Wine. . 3r 


lowing manner:—The animals they intended to 
preserve were kept from drinking any fluid on the 
eve of the day on which the killing took place. 
After the killing the parts to be preserved were 
boned and sprinkled lightly with pounded salt. 
Then, having well dried off all dampness, the 
operators sprinkled more salt, and placed the 
pieces so as not to touch each other, in vessels 
that had been used for oil or vinegar. Over the 
whole they poured sweet wine, covered the con- 
tents of the vessel with straw, and, when they 
could, kept down the temperature of the room in 
which the vessel was placed by sprinkling snow 
around. When the cook wished to remove the 
salt from the meat, he took it out of the wine and 
boiled it first in milk and afterwards in rain 
water. 

Long previous to the Roman era this preserva- 
tive process of wine had been recognised and 
applied. Palm wine was used by the Egyptians in 
their most costly processes of embalming the bodies 
ofthe dead. This same application of wine, or spirits 
of wine, for the preservation of animal and also 
of vegetable substances, has been maintained up 
to our time. In our museums the specimens 
therein preserved, in the moist state, are im- 
mersed in spirit, and the modern art of embalm- 
ing is not perfected without the employment of 
the same antiseptic agent. 

Early after the discovery of the properties of 
wine the fact must have been observed that from 
a change in it another substance was produced, to 
which, in these davs, we give the name of vinegar, 


a2 ; On Alcohol. 


To prevent the formation of vinegar in wine, the 
ancients boiled the wine, and to remove the acidity 
arising from vinegar they added gypsum to sour 
wine, and thus rendered it palatable. Vinegar 
itself they employed for purposes precisely the 
same as we in this day; they partook of it with 
vegetables, they employed it for preservation of 
animal and vegetable substances, and they applied 
it for numerous medicinal purposes. After the 
process of distillation was discovered by the 
adepts, the distillation of vinegar was also carried 
on, and in this way was obtained that strong vine- 
gar, which enters so largely into various uses as 
an acid, called aromatic vinegar. 

Very early in history wine was employed for 
another purpose, that, namely, of extracting the 
active principles from plants and other substances 
possessing, or supposed to possess, medicinal vir- 
tues. Duoscorides, one of the fathers of medicine, 
and particularly of that part which pertains to the 
use of curative substances, or medicaments proper, 
is full of descriptions of vinous tinctures, some of 
which were sufficiently potent even for our pre- 
sent use. A vinous tincture of this kind has a very 
singular and, I had almost said, romantic history. 
This is the wine of Mandragora. In the Isles of 
Greece there has grown for ages a plant called 
mandrake ; it belongs to the same family of plants 
as our belladonna, or deadly nightshade. From 
the root of this plant the Greeks extracted, by 
means of wine, a narcotic, and what in this day we 
should call an anesthetic. Some, says our learned 
Dioscorides, boil the root in the wine down to a 


Uses of Wine. 33 


third part and preserve the decoction, of which 
they administer a cyathus (about what would now 
be a common wineglassful), for want of sleep, or 
for severe pains of any part, and also before ope- 
rations with the knife or cautery, that these may 
not be felt. Again, he says, a wine is prepared 
from the bark without boiling, and three pounds 
of it are put into a cadus (about cighteen gallons) 
of sweet wine, and three cyathi of this are given 
to those who are cut or cauterised, when, being 
thrown into a deep sleep, they do not feel any 
pain. Again, he speaks of a preparation of man- 
dragora called morion, which causes infatuation and 
takes away the reason. Under the influence of 
this agent the person sleeps, without sense, in the 
attitude in which he took it, for three or four 
hours afterwards. Phny, the Roman historian, 
bears evidence, much later, to the same effect, and 
adds the singular remark that some persons have 
sought sleep from the smell of this medicine. And 
again, Lucius Apuleius, the author of the book 
called the ‘Golden Ass,’ who lived about 160 A.D., 
and of whose works eleven editions were repub- 
lished in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 
says that if a man has to have a limb mutilated, 
sawn, or burnt, he may take half an ounce of man- 
dragora in wine, and whilst he sleeps the member 
may be cut off without pain or sense. 

It is unquestionably to this same anzsthetic 
wine our own Shakespeare refers in his half-im- 
aginary, half-legendary Middle Age history. This 
is the wine of that insane root, which, says Mac- 
beth, ‘“‘takes the reason prisoner.” This is the 


34 On Alcohol. 


wine that Juliet drinks, and the action of which 
the Friar Lawrence describes— 


“ Through all thy veins shall run 
A cold and drowsy humor, which shall seize 
Each vital spirit ; for no pulse shall keep 
His natural progress, but surcease to beat: 
No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou liv’st ; 
The roses in thy lips and checks shall fade 
To paly ashes ; thy eyes’ windows fall, 
Like death when he shuts up the day of life ; 
Each part, deprived of supple government, 
Shall stiff, and stark, and cold appear like death: 
And in this borrow’d likeness of shrunk death 
Thou shalt remain full two and forty hours, 
And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.” 


It follows therefore from the history of scientific 
discovery that our modern great advance of re- 
moving pain during surgical operations is in fact, 
if not as old as the hills, as old almost as wine. 
But is the story true, you say? I answer Yes, 
and the answer is from experiment. Thinking it 
a subject of very great interest, I instituted, a few 
years ago, an inquiry into the matter. Through 
the kindness of my friend, the late Mr. Daniel 
Hanbury, F.R.S., I obtained a fine specimen of 
mandragora root, and I made once again, after a 
lapse of probably five centuries, Mandragora wine. 
I tested this, and found it was a narcotic having 
precisely the properties that were anciently as- 
cribed to it. I found that in animals it would pro- 
duce even the sleep of Julict, not for thirty or forty 
hours, a term that must be accepted as a poetical 
licence, but for the four hours named by Diosco- 
rides easily, and that in awakening there was an 


Uses of Sptrit of Wine or Alcohol. 35 


excitement which tallies with the same phenome- 
non that was observed by the older physicians. 

Thus, one of the first uses of wine to man was 
amongst the most noble and beneficent that man 
by his ingenuity can confer on his kind, and if 
wine had ever been used in this way and in none 
worse, Pater Lenaeus might have retained his su- 
premacy in the good opinion of all the world. 

Besides using wine for extracting the virtues of 
the vegetable kingdom, our ancient chemists tested 
it on metals and made it here subservient to their 
purpose. What they called the extract of Mars 
was a solution of iron, made with an astringent 
wine, and reduced into a thick consistency by fire. 
Eight ounces of the rust of iron, powdered very 
fine, were put into an iron pot and covered with 
four pints of strong red wine. The iron crucible 
was then set on the fire, and the mixture, stirred 
with an iron rod, was boiled to a third: then it 
was strained through a cloth and evaporated into 
an extract. To this extract wonderful curative 
powers were ascribed, and indeed it was a very 
useful medicine. The metal antimony also was 
subjected to the action of wine. The so called 
liver of antimony was treated with white wine and 
dissolved in it, and to this day we retain the reme- 
dy. It was originally called the emetic wine. 


USES OF SPIRIT OF WINE OR ALCOHOL. 


After the process of distillation of wine was dis- 
covered, the use of the new spirit rose rapidly into 
application in a variety of ways. The adepts, the 


36 On Alcohol. 


Middle Age chemists of whom I have spoken, kept 
this distilled spirit long a secret. They found in it 
a solvent for many things that before were insolu- 
ble. Oils, resins, gum resins, balsams were now 
brought into a medium that acted towards them 
as a menstruum, and straightway they were dis- 
solved. The East Indian Styrax Benzoin yielded 
a balsam which, dissolved in the distilled spirit, 
was a fortune to the chemists. The Commander’s 
balsam, or balsam for wounds, or Friar’s balsam, 
was soon the reputed heal-all of every injury. 

The useful extracted first out of the new distil- 
late, beauty was next remembered. Alas for the 
female face divine, the cosmetic and the subtile 
wash that should veritably make young faces old 
and assumably make old faces young, were soon 1n 
process in the laboratory of the adept who could 
distil wine. Again, the artist came in for a share 
in the discovery. The once insoluble and the use- 
less resins and ambers were dissolved for his brush, 
and gave him coatings, preservatives, and wash- 
ings, of which previously he had no conception. 

This spirit of wine burns. It does not touch oil 
for the hight it gives, but how strange! it burns 
away without a trace of smoke, and with an excel- 
lent heat. So the spirit lamp in due time is in- 
vented. A trifle, say you? Nay, it was as great 
an advance to the chemist who first used it as the 
gas in the Bunsen burner is to us. 

Once more; this subtle spirit has in it the virtue 
of preserving all organic substances with which it 
is brought in contact. It masters putrefaction it- 
self; perchance the elixir of life 1s therefore found. 


Uses of Spirit of Wine or Alcohol. 37 


It dissolves insoluble bodies; perchance it will by 
careful study and experiment reveal the grand 
secret of transmutation. In this way reasoned its 
first masters. | 

1 must not dwell longer over these details of 
minor things of major usefulness. I must turn to 
some applications of our refined spirit which are 
major in fact as well as in use, in theory as well as 
in practice, in science as well as in art. In this re- 
gard we have to consider alcohol as the basis of 
other essences not less potent than itself. | 

The process of distillation of essences from liquids 
and from vegetable substances once established, it 
was but natural that some adept should turn his 
hand to mineral bodies and try if they would not 
yicld some new product that should be of effective 
and novel quality. Into the distillatory soon pass, 
therefore, all manner of things, from the horn of 
the stag or hart, to the skull and brain of the dead 
man. Among other substances there was submit- 
ted to distillation the green stony crystal found in 
the earth, and called green vitriol, in Latin vztrzo- 
Jum. The result of the distillation of this vztrzolum 
was to obtain as a yield, in the retort, the heavy 
oily corrosive fluid called, originally, spirit of vit- 
riol, called now oil of vitriol or sulphuric acid. 

Many were the fanciful things thought of by the 
adepts concerning this oil, and even to the letters 
of which the word wtriolum is made up they 
attached a mystical symbolism. In course of 
time they began to combine and to distil other 
fluids with the corrosive sulphurous oil, and 
amongst the first of fluids used in this manner 


38 | On Alcohol. 
stood spirit of wine. The experiment did not de- 
ceive them, for it gave them as a product one of 
the most useful and wonderful of liquids. To them 
this new liquid as it first was taken from the retort 
was an infinite marvel. They poured it on water 
and it floated, on spirit and it floated. They 
poured it into their hands, and, lo! it boiled there. 
It escaped from them into an invisible state or air 
before they could well bottle it; 1t burned and ex- 
ploded. It caused, when it passed off from the 
surface of the living body, an intense cold. It dis- 
solved wax, oil, fat, gums, resins, balsams, and yet 
when it was set free it let them fall again. It was 
so light that a measure which would hold ten 
pounds weight of water would only hold seven 
pounds of this light intangible liquid. What name 
shall they apply to this substance, the lightest 
known? They designate it by a term indicating 
the lightest thing they can conceive: they com- 
pare it with the refined medium, with which the 
philosophers imagine the firmament to be filled, 
and they give it the same name. They call it 
ether. , 

Of what strange after-use this magical fluid has 
been to man we all know. It was introduced early 
into medicine, and was well studied last century 
by Dr. Ward, and by Mr. Turner, of Liverpool. 
In our own time, it has been discovered to have 
the power of suspending sensation and sensibility 
after being inhaled by the lungs, and by its means 
there has been re-introduced to the world that 
beneficent and long lost art of rendering the body 
insensible to pain during surgical operations. 


Uses of Spirit of Wine or Alcohol. 39 


More recently by a study cf the application of 
ether for the production of intense cold, I myself 
introduced that local use of it for benumbing the 
body, called the ether spray. 

The value of this secondary alcohol to man is 
indeed inestimable. You know how valuable it 
has been in photography as the volatile solvent of 
collodion, and in other various departments of the 
fine and useful arts it has rendered equally good 
service. 

From the distillation of vztrzo/um our adepts soon 
passed to other solid substances. They distilled 
saltpetre, and so got the spirit of nitre, which we 
call now nitric acid; they distilled common salt in 
combination with oil of vitriol, and so got spirit 
of salts (marine acid), which we call hydrochloric 
acid. Again, with these new spirits they distilled 
spirits of wine to obtain new ethers, nitrous and 
marine. Then a chemist, the Count de Laura- 
enais, distilled together acetic acid and spirit of 
wine, by which process he obtained acetous ether. 
Thus by these double actions, a numcrous series 
of useful ethers has been obtained, it were too long 
for me to enumerate. 

From the observation of the fermentation of wine 
we derive, in a certain sense, our first knowledge 
of gases. Van Helmont gave to the gas which 
comes from the fermenting of vegetable matter 
the name of gas sylvestre, and from this may be 
dated the origin of the study of these invisible 
forms of matter. Priestley made some of his carly 
observations on the gas which escaped from fer- 
menting malt in a brewery at Warrington, and was 


40 On Alcohol. 


led step by step to the lberation of gases from 
mineral and earthy substances, and so to the dis- 
covery of oxygen. Upon that discovery, coupled 
with his method of collecting gases by displace- 
ment of water, and of trying their qualitics, came 
the process of distilling and collecting a gas from 
coal, and thus coal gas. 

After the discovery of the element known as 
chlorine, and of the compounds of that element 
with other elements, another new era was opened 
in the history of alcohol. By passing chlorine 
through alcohol, Liebig obtained that narcotic sub- 
stance which we call chloral hydrate ; and by treat- 
ing alcohol with chloride of lime, the same great 
experimentalist produced for us chloroform, an 
agent which has rivalled ether in its service as a 
soother and saver of pain. A glance at the table— 
No. IV. of the Appendix—of anzesthetics or sleep 
producers will show by the names in italics those 
substances which come from alcohol. All that 
have proved of most use excepting one, nitrous 
oxide or laughing gas, have this common origin. 

Had the time not been expended, I could have 
brought before you further illustration upon illus- 
tration of these secondary uses of alcohol to man; 
but I must stop, content in having recalled to your 
minds some of the more striking facts in the his- 
tory of the curious and important agent which is 
now the subject of our studies. 


LECTURE II. 


THE ALCOHOL GROUP OF ORGANIC BODIES— 
ColuM Of DIF RERENT ALCOHOLS: 


{¥ before a chemist of a hundred years ago you 
could have placed a specimen of spirit of wine or 
alcohol, and could have asked him of what it was 
composed, he would have told you that it was the 
element of water combined with elementary fire, 
to which elementary fire he would give the name 
of phlogiston, a name derived from a Greek word 
signifying to burn or inflame. He would tell you 
that all bodies that burned were phlogisticated, 
and that bodies that would not burn were dephlo- 
gisticated. The substance that was left behind 
was, he would probably add, the element with 
which the clementary fire had previously been 
combined. Were you to ask him whence he de- 
rived this knowledge, he would say, “from the 
greatest chemist who had ever lived before his 
time, George Ernest Stahl, Professor of Medicine, 
Anatomy, and Chemistry in the University of 
Halle, who had died in Berlin, whither he had 
gone to be physician to the King of Prussia, forty 
years ago.” 

As proof that alcohol was elementary water 
combined with phlogiston, our ancient chemist 


would probably show you this experiment :—He 
41 


42 On Alcohol. 


would place a portion of the spirit in a cup, would 
set fire to the spirit, and would invert over the 
flame a glass vessel, shaped almost like a common 
globe, which he would call a cucurbit, into which 
he would allow the flame to ascend. He would 
indicate that within the glass vessel a vapor, derived 
from the burning fluid, formed and condensed, as 
you see it forming and condensing now.  Collect- 
ing this fluid, he would prove to you that it was 
water, which water he could show to be nothing 
else but one indivisible thing, therefore an element. 
Thus his demonstration would be complete. The 
element, while it existed as spirit, yielded fire on 
burning; it was fire water. The fire was con- 
densed with the water. Nothing could be plainer, 
according to his light of science. 

Lf you had inquired of the chemist whether he had 
any symbol by which to denote elementary water or 
spirit, he would give you, as a symbol for water, a 
sign something like the letter ¥, with two wavy 
lines following the letters; and for spirit of wine, a 
sign like the letter ¥ with the letter § in the centre, 
as I put it on the blackboard; and if once more 
you questioned him as to whether his laboratory 
contained any similar chemical substance, he would 
answer—none. Spirit of wine stood by itself a 
pure substance, possessing single and special vir- 
tues. 

If, passing over the intervening hundred years, 
you asked the chemist of to-day, “What is alco- 
hol?” he would tell you that it was an organic 
radical called ethyl, combined with the elements 
of water. He would explain that water was no 


The Alcohol Group of Organic Bodies. 43 


longer considered to be an element, but to be com- 
posed of two elements, called hydrogen and oxy- 
gen, two equivalents of hydrogen being combined 
in it with one equivalent of oxygen. He would 
inform you that the radical he had called ethyl was 
a compound of carbon and hydrogen, and he would 
add that this radical in alcohol took the place of 
one of the equivalents of hydrogen of water. He 
thereupon would give you symbols for water and 
alcohol, but symbols of a very different kind to 
those presented by his learned predecessor. He 
would express the names of the elements compos- 
ing the water and spirit by the first letters of their 
names, and add their equivalents, or parts, by fig- 
ures attached to the letters. Thus his symbol for 
water would be H,Q; for the radical ethyl, C,H; ; 
and for alcohol (C,H;) HO or C,H,O. 

Were you interested about the theory of phlo- 
giston, invented by the illustrious George Ernest 
Stahl, your modern guide would instruct you that 
the theory had long since been discarded, and tha 
towards the latter part of the last century the very 
books of its discoverer had been burned, in derision, 
by a priestess of science in one of the temples cf 
science in Paris. Then through what a wonderful 
history of discovery during the hundred years he 
would, if he liked, lead you. Into this cucurbit in 
which I burned the alcohol, and which you will 
observe I closed by placing it with its mouth 
downwards upon the table, he would pour clear 
lime water as I do now; he would shake the 
water round the sides of the cucurbit and sce, as 
he did it, the water would become milky white. 


44 On Alcohol. 


This phenomenon he would indicate was due to 
the presence of a gas which the old chemist had 
actually collected but had overlooked. That gas 
is carbonic acid. It, as well as the water, was the 
product of the combustion of the spirit, and it 
now, in combination with the lime water, has 
united with the lime, forming carbonate of lime or 
chalk. Following the history of this gas, called 
once fixed air, because it could thus be fixed by 
lime and other substances, he would show how it 
had been proved to consist of carbon and oxygen; 
how it is given off from the burning cf bodics con- 
taining carbon; and how a French chemist of, the 
last century, named Lavoisier, traced out by analy- 
sis that, in fermentation, the juice of grapes is 
changed from being swect and full of sugar into a 
vinous liquor, which no longer contains any sugar, 
the inflammable liquor known as spirit of wine. 
Thence it would be shown that the same illustrious 
chemist, making an analysis of sugar and studying 
the effects of yeast in causing fermentation of 
sugar, collected and weighed the elements pro- 
duced, determined the elementary composition of 
spirit as consisting of carbon, hydrogen, and oxy- 
gen, and from his research announced the new 
principle in chemistry, that in all the operations in 
art and nature nothing is created; that an equal 
quantity of matter exists both before and after the 
experiment; that the quality and quantity of the 
elements remain precisely the same; that nothing 
takes place beyond changes and modifications in 
the combinations of the elements; and that in 
every chemical experiment an exact equality must 


the Alcohol Group of Organic Bodtes. 45 


be supposed between the elements of the body ex- 
amined, and those of the products of its analysis. 
Finally, on this head, he would state the theory of 
Lavoisier, that zz2st consists of alcohol combined 
with carbonic acid, and that the effects of vinous 
fermentation upon sugar are reduced to the mere se- 
paration of the clements of sugar into two portions ; 
one portion oxygenated at the expense of the other, 
so as to form carbonic acid; the other disoxyge- 
nated to form alcohol; so that were it possible to 
reunite alcohol and carbonic acid the product 
would be sugar. Bringing you down to a later 
period, the modern chemist would describe a the- 
ory current about between thirty and forty years 
ago that alcohol is a compound of olefiant gas and 
water, and that in a state of vapor it consists of 
equal volumes of these. Or, again, that it was a 
hydrate of ether; or, again, according to a still 
later view, that it was a hydrated oxide of ethyl. 
Thus he would bring you to the latest theory as 
to composition which I have already supplied. 
Lastly, if for the sake of further comparison you 
asked the chemist of to-day whether alcohol had 
any ally or congener, he would reply, many. He 
would give you, for instance, this spirit, which he 
would call methylic alcohol, and which he would 
tell you was got also by distillation, only that the 
distillation was dry, and that the substance dis- 
tilled was wood; or he would give you this speci- 
men, which he would call amylic alcohol, and 
which he would tell you was got by distillation, 
not of wood, but of potato. Again, he would show 
you other specimens, to which he would give 


46 On Alcohol. 


different names as indicated in table No. V. of the 
Appendix. 

Directing your attention to the composition of 
these alcohols, the chemist would beg you to ob- 
serve that their chemical construction is through- 
out the same, that is to say, in all cases, a radical 
composed of carbon and hydrogen has replaced 
one of the equivalents of hydrogen of water. The 
radicals, however, vary in respect to the equiva- 
lents of the elements of which they are composed, 
and to distinguish them they have different names. 
Essentially each radical, though it is composed of 
more than one element, acts as if it were one, and 
is called a base, because it 1s a root or origin upon 
which other structures rest. Thus, in the present 
case, the radicals, as they vary in amount of car- 
bon and hydrogen which they contain, produce, 
in each case of their combination with water, an 
alcohol possessing a ditierent property or different 
properties from the other alcohols. The table 
No. VI. of the Appendix will give an illustration 
of the increase of carbon and hydrogen in the 
radicals of the series. 

The first of the radicals, methyl, 1s composed of 
one equivalent of carbon and three of hydrogen. 
The radical ethyl of two of carbon and five of 
hydrogen. The radical propyl of three of carbon 
and seven of hydrogen, and so on, the increase in 
the cquivalents of the elements being after a given 
rule in the whole series, the carbon increasing one, 
and the hydrogen two with each progressive step. 
So, as the alcohols progressively change from the 
first of the series, the methylic, they grow richer 


The Alcohol Group of Organic Bodies. A7 


in carbon and hydrogen, and proportionatcly they 
grow heavier, less soluble, and less volatile. 

A very simple experiment suffices to show the 
Increase of carbon in these series. If I take a 
piece of cotton wool, place it ina glass cup, pour 
upon it a little methylic alcohol, in which alcohol 
there is the smallest amount of carbon, set fire to 
it and hold a white plate over the flame, the plate 
remains white because the air that reaches the 
flame is sufficient to consume all the carbon. If 
J] do the same experiment with ethylic alcohol, 
although the carbon is a little greater, yet the 
result remains the same. If I move two steps 
higher, viz., to butylic alcohol, in which there are 
four equivalents of carbon, the combustion is not 
quite complete, and therefore a shade or stain of 
carbon is left on the plate: and if, going one step 
further in the series, I use amylic alcohol, then the 
combustion is rendered so imperfect that a thick 
layer of carbon, derived from the alcohol, in the 
destruction of it by the burning, 1s left upon the 
white surface. I may digress here for a moment 
to state,—if the practical fact about to be told be 
considered a digression,—that this simple mode 
of testing common alcohol will serve roughly to 
detect extreme adultcration of it with the heavier 
alcohol—fusel oil, some of which I last burnt. 
This heavier alcohol is used in -adulteration, and 
as you will learn when you hear of its effects, it 
is a dangerous adulterant. I was dining a few 
months ago with some friends, one of whom pro- 
duced a small flask of precious liquor he had had 
presented to him, and which was said to be an 


48 On Alcohol. 


unusualiy choice hollands. On examining it I felt 
sure it was a gin treated with fusel cil, and on 
burning a little of it, this suspicion was confirmed 
by a deposit of carbon upon a white dish. I 
warned my iriends forthwith of the danger of 
drinking this heavy, though certainly pleasant 
spirit, and. the majority took the warning. Two, 
less prudent, indulged, to suffer for the next two 
or three succeeding days to an extent that con- 
vinced them that there was no mistake in the 
scientific and friendly admonition they had re- 
ceived. 

The physical distinctions between the various 
alcohols now before us are marked by other signs. 
For example, as we move from the methylic alco- 
hol upwards, we discover that their vapors in-: 
crease in weight, that as fluids they grow heavier, 
and that their boiling point, that is to say the tem- 
perature required to make them boil, has to be 
increased. Another table, No. VII. of the Appen- 
dix, illustrates these facts in relation to four alco- 
hols of the series: viz., methylic, ethylic, butylic, 
and amylic. 

Thus the vapor densrty of methylic alcohol is 16 
when compared with hydrogen gas as a standard; 
of cthylic alcohol, 23; of butylic, 37; and of amy- 
lic, 44. In respect to the specific gravity of the 
fluids, that is to say of the weights of the fluids 
themselves, compared with water estimated as a 
thousand, the same rule cxtends, with the one 
remarkable exception, viz., that the methylic alco- 
hol appears heavier than the ethylic, after which 
the weights increase, so that amylic alcohol stands 


The Atcokol Group of Organic Bodies. 49 


as 811, to 792 the weight of ethylic. Again, as to 
the boiling points, the hghtest aicohol boils at 140, 
that is 72° below the boiling point of water; ethy- 
erat gerepropylic at 205; butylic at +230; or 18° 
above the boiling point of water; and amylic at 
270, or 58° above the boiling point of water, on 
Fahrenheit's scale. 

The analogies between these various alcohols 
are sustained throughout by other chemical 
changes relating to them. If we expose diluted 
common alcohol to the atmosphere under fitting 
conditions it becomes acidified; in other words, it 
is converted into vinegar. This is due to its oxy- 
dation, in which process there are two steps; one 
by which the spirit is converted into a substance 
called aldehyde (dehydrated alcohol—al-de-hyd), 
and then into acetic acid, or vinegar. In the for- 
mation of the aldehyde two atoms of the hydrogen 
are oxydised, by which water is produced, and 
the aldehyde has therefore the composition of 
to). im the! formation’ of the acetic “acid 
another atom of oxygen is added, and the acetic 
acid has therefore the composition of C,H,Q,. 
This same series of changes extends through all 
the alcohols, as will be seen from table No. VIII. 
of the Appendix. 

I said, in the first lecture, that from common or 
ethylic alcohol a new compound can be obtained 
by heating it with sulphuric acid, to which com- 
pound the name of ether is applied. In like man- 
ner, an ether can be obtained from the other 
alcohols. 

If chlorine be brought to bear upon cthylic 


50 On Alcohol. 


\ 


alcohol, the elements of water, that is to say, the 
oxygen and the hydrogen are removed, and are 
replaced by chlorine, and there is formed chloride 
of ethyl. This change can be extended to all the 
other alcohols, the properties of the products 
being modified by the base. 

The same rule extends to the action of iodine, 
and to that of nitrous acid. Tables [X. to XII. 
of the Appendix afford iliustrations of these facts. 
They could be largely extended, but they are 
sufficient for our purpose. 

I have brought for those who are curious to see 
them, twelve specimens of the different compounds 
formed on the alcohols. Six of these belong to 
the cthyl, or common alcohol series, six to the 
amyl, and they include respectively specimens of 
the alcohols, of the acids of the alcohols, of the 
ethers, of the chlorides, of the iodides, and of the 
nitrites: One of these specimens, I mean the 
nitrite of amyl, has within these last few years 
obtained a remarkable importance owing to its 
extraordinary action upon the body. A distin- 
guished chemist, Professor Guthrie, while distill- 
ing over nitrite of amyl from amylic alcohol, ob- 
served that the vapor, when inhaled, quickened 
his circulation, and made him feel as if he had 
been running. There was flushing of his face, 
rapid action of his heart, and breathlessness. In 
1861-2, | made a careful and prolonged study of 
the action of this singular body, and discovered 
that it produced its effect by causing an extreme 
rclaxation, first, of the blood vessels, and) aiter- 
wards of the muscular fibres of the body. To 


The Alcoho! Group of Organic Bodies. 31 


such an extent did this agent relax, I. found it 
would even overcome the tetanic spasm produced 
by strychnia, and having thus discovered its 
action, | ventured to propose its use for removing 
the spasm in some of the extremest spasmodic 
diseases. The results have more than realised my 
expectations. Under the influence of this agent, 
one of the most agonising of known human mala- 
dies, called Angina pectoris, has becn brought under 
uch control that the paroxysms have been regu- 
larly prevented, and in one instance, at least, 
altogether removed. Even tetanus, or lock-jaw 
has been subdued by it, and in two instances, of 
an extreme kind so effectively as to warrant the 
credit of what may be truly called a cure. I 
notice this action of nitrite of amyl because it will 
be referred to again in explanation of certain of 
the eflects of alcohol. 

Tshould have hked; 1 there had been time, to 
have dwelt at greater length on many other inte- 
resting points bearing on these different alcohols 
and their derivatives. I should have bcen pleased 
to have presented to you a more extended account 
of the progress of discovery during the past cen- 
tury leading to these modern facts; and I should 
much have liked to have rendered more complete 
the description of the alcohol series cf bodics, by 
explaining the differences of what are called mona- 
tomic, diatomic, and triatomic alcohols; but I 
must desist for two reasons; first, because the 
study would Icad me into too great detail, and 
secondly, because it would introduce to notice a 
scrics of compounds, the physiological action of 


52 On Alcohol. 


which are not so wel! understood as are those to 
which { shall soon direct your attention and the 
study of which is more than enough for the time 
that is at our disposal. It must be considered suf- 
ficient, therefore, if I have succeeded in showing 
that the common alcohol is but one of a group of 
a series of chemical compounds, and that its supe- 
rior claim to our notice rests upon its antiquity as 
a discovered substance, and on its enormous dis- 
tribution in civilised communities, rather than on 
its special or distinctive properties as a chemical 
agent. 

One other series of facts I would, however, 
briefly describe before leaving this part of my 
subject. If into this ethylic alcohol I throw a 
portion of the metal sodium, a brisk action imme- 
diately begins to take place; as you will see, a gas 
escapes which I easily collect in a glass tube, 
which burns, and if mixed with air, explodes, as 
you hear. The gas is hydrogen. A change of 
substitution has occurred in this experiment. The 
hydrogen belonging to the water of the alcohol 
has been replaced by the sodium, and what is 
called sodium alcohol is produced. The result 
would have been the same with potassium as the 
replacing metal. 

By acting on common alcohol with strong pot- 
ash, then with sulphuretted hydrogen, and after- 
~ wards with iodide of ethyl, a new alcohol is pro- 
duced called mercaptan. In this fluid the oxygen 
of the alcohol is replaced by sulphur, so that the 
formula for it is (C,H;) HS. It is a fluid, whitish 
in color, and of so offensive and penetrating an 


Action of Methylie Alcohol. 53 


odor that it can hardly be approached until it is 
largely diluted with common alcohol. It is nearly 
insoluble in water, but imparts to it its peculiar 
odor; its specific gravity 1s 832, compared with 
watcr as 1,000; it 1s thirty-one times heavier than 
hydrogen, and it boils at 135° Fahr. 

Sulphur alcohol is very rarely seen, but there is 
a diluted specimen here which has been prepared 
with very great care. Therc is only 5 per cent. 
of it in the solution, and yet its odor is as strong as 
can well be borne. 

From this point I proceed to dwell on the action 
of certain of the alcohols which have been brought 
before us up to the present time, excluding on this 
occasion the alcohol best known, I meanthe common 
alcohol of commerce, or as we know it chemically, 
ethylic alcohol. The point I shall aim at will be 
to show the influence of these alcohols upon ani- 
mal life, and thereby to lead up to the action of 
ethylic alcohol pure and simple. The subject is 
one entirely new, and is limited to a very few 
bodies of the alcohol group, viz., to methylic alco- 
hol, butylic, amylic, the potassium and sodium 
alcohols, and sulphur alcohol or mercaptan. 


Deon OF METHYLIC ALCOHOL, 


Methylic alcohol, pyroxylic spirit or wood spirit, 
as it has been differently called, the spirit contained 
in the liquid got by distilling wood, has been known 
for about 62 years. It was discovered by Mr. Philip 
Taylor, in 1812, and was soon applied for lamps 
and for other purposes as a spirit. It was prob. 


54 On Alcohel. 


ably first made commercially by Messrs. Turnbull 
and Ramsay, of Glasgow. Its properties were in- 
vestigated and reported upon by Sir Robert Kane, 
of Dublin, in 1836, and it was also analysed by 
Messrs. Dumas and Pcligot, who determined that 
it contained 37.5 per cent. of carbon, 12.5 per cent. 
of hydrogen, and 50 per cent. of oxygen. When it 
is pure it remains clear in the atmosphere. It has 
an aromatic smell, with a shght acidity. The 
specimen I[ have used for my research had a speci- 
fic weight of 810, water being 1,000, and it boiled 
at 140° Fahr. 

The spirit has been much used :n the arts in the 
place of alcohol for making varnishes. Having a 
lower boiling point it is more volatile than com- 
mon alcohol. It is now also largely used in mu- 
seums for preserving purposes, and it yiclds on 
oxydation a very powerful preservative vinegar. 
For the sake of economy it is often employed in 
the manufacture of other compounds cailed methy- 
lated. 

Owing to the volatile nature of this alcoho: it 
may be exhibited freely by inhalation in the same 
manner that chloroform is administered. It then 
enters the blood by being carried with the air that 
is inspired into the pulmonary tract, and thus into 
the air vesicles. Herc it is absorbed into the cir- 
culation by the minute blood-vessels which make 
their way from the heart over the lungs, and which 
ramify upon the vesicles. By administrating th 
vapor of methylic alcohol in. this way its effects 
are rapidly developed, for it condenses quickly in 

the blood, is carried rapidly into the left side of 


Action of Methylie Alcchol. 55 


the heart, and thence is distributed by the arteries 
over the whole body as quickly as it is condensed 
and absorbed. 

The alcohol may be administered in the usual 
way, that is to say, in combination with water, hot 
or cold. In this way it is not unpleasant to the 
taste, and in one instance, as I am informed by a 
veteran member of my profession, this alcohol was 
invariably drunk by. a well-known physician, in 
preference to common alcohol. He was accus- 
tomed to make it into toddy, with water and sugar, 
and considered that while it was as pleasant to 
take as ordinary spirituous drinks, it was less in- 
qurious ‘than they are.’ | have mysclf, ‘of late 
years, when cor npelled to allow the administration 
of alcohol, sometimes recommended this methylic 
lighter spirit, and [ am satisfied, with better re- 
sults than if the heavier or ethylic spirit had been 
se lgahies I have ventured also to suggest that 
in many instances other physicians might follow 
the same ea tice with advantage; for methylic 
alcohol 1s much more rapid in its action, and much 
less prolonged ints effects than is common alco- 
hol, so that it pro oduces its eilests promptly, and 
what is of most importance, it demands the least 
possible ultimate expenditure of animal force for 
its climination from the body. This latter fact, I 
repeat, 1s of great moment, for, in the end, all these 
alcohohe fluids are depressants, and although at 
first, by their calling vigorously into play the na- 
tural forces, they seem to excite and are therefore 
called stimulants, they themselves supply no force 
at any time, but cause expenditure of force, by 


56 Ox Alcoho’. 


which means they get away out of the body and 
therewith lead to exhaustion and paralysis of mo- 
tion. In other words, the animal force which 
should be expended on the nutrition and sensation 
of the body, is in part expended on the alcohol, an 
entirely foreign expenditure. 

The lighter the alcohol therefore, ceteris paribus, 
the less injurious its action, and so we may put 
down methylic alcohol as the safest of the series of 
bodies to which it belongs. But it is not without 
potency of effect, and the phenomena it produces 
are sufficiently demonstrative. Its effects are de- 
veloped in four distinct stages. 

The first stage 1s that of excitement of the ner- 
vous organisation; the pulse is quickened, the 
breathing is quickened, the surface of the body is 
flushed, and the pupil is dilated. After a little 
time there is a sense of languor, the muscles falling 
into a state of prostration and the muscular move- 
ments becoming irregular. Thereupon the second 
stage follows, 1f the administration be continued. 
In this second stage the muscular prostration is 
increased, the breathing is labored, and is attended 
by deep sighing movements at intervals of about 
four or five seconds, followed by further prostra- 
tion, rolling over of the body upon the side, and 
distinct signs of intoxication. From this condition 
the subject passes into the third stage, which is 
that of entire intoxication, complete insensibility 
to pa:n, with unconsciousness of all external ob- 
jects, and with inability to exert any voluntary 
muscular’ power. The breathing now becomes 
embarrassed and blowing, with what is techni- 




















Action of Methylic Alcohol. 57 


cally called “ bronchial rale,” or rattle, due to the 
passage of air through fluid that has accumulated 
in the finer bronchial passages. The heart and 
lungs, however, even in this stage, retain their 
functions, and therefore recovery will take place 
if the conditions for it be favorable. Also, if the 
body be touched or irritated in parts, there will 
be response of motion, not from any knowledge or 
consciousness, but from what we physiologists call 
“reflex action ;” that is to say, the impression we 
have made by irritation upon the surface of the 
body has travelled by its usual route through the 
nerves to its nervous centre in the brain, and un- 
controlled there by the consciousness has rolled 
back again, stimulating in its course some muscu- 
lar fibre to motion. Probably the reason why the 
heart, which is a muscle, and the breathing mus- 
cles, continue to beat while all the other portions 
are at rest is due to this fact, that the blood which 
the heart drives to the brain and other nervous 
centres conveys to the centres which supply the 
heart a wave of motion that rolls back upon these 
vital muscles, and sustains them still in their 
rhythmical motion. 

During all these stages there is no violent con- 
vulsive action from this alcohol, and no distinct 
tremor; but one phenomenon has been step by 
step more marked, and that phenomenon is a re- 
duction of the animal temperature. Even though 
the body of the subject be exposed to a tempera- 
ture of 84°, that is summer heat, it will begin to 
cool from the first, and will continue to cool 
through all the stages, so that at last the loss of 


5 8 On Alcohol. 


heat will become actually dangerous; for the cold 
body cannot throw off water freely, and therefore 
fluid collects in the lungs, and there is risk of what 
may be plainly considered suffocation like as from 
drowning. 1 have seen this decline of tempera- 
ture from methylic alcohol, in animals narcotised 
by it, procced to the loss of eight degrees of heat 
on Fahrenheit’s scale when the insensibility was at 
its extreme point. 

Presuming that the administration of the me- 
thylic spirit be continued when the third degree 
has been reached, there is a last stage, which is 
that of death. The two remaining nervous cen- 
tres which feed the heart and respiration cease 
simultaneously to act, and all motion is over. 
After the death the blood throughout the body is 
found charged with the alcohol. The circulation 
of blood over the lungs has continued to the last, 
and so the lungs are found containmg blood in 
both sides of the heart; the vessels of the brain are 
engorged with blood, as are the other vascular 
organs. The blood itself is not materially changed 
in physical quality, but coagulates, or forms into 
clot, rather more siowly than usual. 

If at the third stage of insensibility the adminis- 
tration of methylic spirit be stopped, recovery 
from the insensibility and prostration will invaria- 
bly take place on one condition, that the body be 
kept dry and warm. From four to five hours, 
however, are necessary before the recovery is 
complete, and under the best conditions the resto- 
ration of the animal temperature is not perfected 
under a period of seven hours. 


Action of Methylic Alcohol, 59 


Happily we have no data to guide us that will 
show the effects on the animal body of the long 
continued use of methylic alcohol, for men have not 
as yet so steadily plied themselves with it as a 
drink as to induce phenomena of chronic intoxica- 
tion from it. The above-named facts, however, 
drawn from careful observations, in which the 
effects of the agent were seen on the inferior ani- 
mals, and in one instance where the fluid was taken 
by accident by the human subject, show that me- 
thylic alcohol, though it may be less potent than 
its allies, is sufficiently potent, and the inference is 
fair, indeed irresistible, that if the use of it were 
persevered in for long periods of time, it would lead 
to structural change in the body, just as all other 
chemical agents do that modify and pervert the 
natural mechanism. An agent that causes con- 
gestion of the brain cannot be employed many 
times without destroying the delicate organisation 
of the vascular structure of the brain, neither can 
it influence the other vascular organs in the same 
way without prejudice to their structure; neither 
can it destroy the function of the nerves, of the 
muscles, and of the organs of the senses without 
prejudice to their functions. In many respects 
this, the lightest and least injurious of the alcohols, 
resembles chloroform in the ultimate action it pro- 
duces on the body. It still more closely resem- 
bles ether, although recovery from the effects of 
both these agents is very much more rapid than 
from the spirit. It may consequently, as a chem1- 
cal agent possessing a specific power of action 
over the living organism, be fairly classified with 


60 On Alcohol. 


these agents. It is quite as artificial as they are, 
it is quite as dangerous in the long run, and its 
effects are more prolonged. 


ACTIONSORNBUTY LIC ALCOHOL: 


I pass over the second alcohol of our series, viz., 
ethylic alcohol, the common alcohol of wines and 
spirits, because that will of itself engage our atten- 
tion for the remaining part of the course, after this 
lecture is concluded. I pass over propylic also for 
the reason that it is not easily separated as an 
alcohol, and is less perfectly studied than the other _ 
members of the group before us. Thus I am 
brought to what is called butylic alcohol. 

With this spirit we arrive at one of the heavier 
bodies of the group in which, as our table shows, 
there is a higher proportion of carbon and hydro- 
gen than exists in those that are placed above it in 
the scale. Compared with common alcohol the 
weight of its vapor is as 37 to 23. Its weight, asa 
fluid, is 803 to-792, and its boiling point 230 Fahr. 
to 172. Itisa heavier fluid ; it mixcs indifferently 
with water, but it is not unpleasant to take when 
diluted and sweetened. Apphed to the lips and 
tongue when in a pure state it creates a sensation 
of burning, in the same way as common spirit, but 
with more intensity, and there is this remarkable 
fact connected with the sensation, that after the 
burning effect has passed away an extreme numb- 
ness of the part, where the fluid was applied, re- 
mains. I made this observation originally in 1869, 
and I have since often applied the knowledge with 


Action of Butylie Alcohol. 61 


effect, in relieving, by the application of the agent, 
local pain. Toothache, for instance, is very quickly 
soothed by it. 

The alcohol is not obtained by a special process 
of distillation ; it is produced with other alcohols 
in the process of fermentation, and is obtained by 
what is called fractional distillation, that is, by dis- 
tillation of it, at certain fixed temperatures, from 
fusel oil, or from the oil of beet-root, or from mo- 
lasses after distillation of ethylic spirit. 

The action of butylic alcohol on the animal body 
is divisible into four stages, the same as we have 
scen in respect to methyl spirit, but the period 
required for producing the different stages is 
greatly prolonged ; and when the third stage, that 
of complete insensibility, is reached, there is added 
a new phenomenon which does not belong to any 
of the lighter alcohols. In this third degree, after 
the temperature of the body is depressed to the 
minimum by the butylic spirit, distinct tremors 
occur throughout the whole of the muscular sys- 
tem. These come on at regular intervals spon- 
taneously, but they can be excited by a touch at 
any time, and in the intervals where they are 
absent there is frequent twitching of the muscles. 
The tremors themselves are not positively muscu- 
lar contractions, but are rather vibrations or wave- 
like motions through the muscles, and are attended 
with an extreme deficiency of true contractile 
power in the muscular fibre. An electrical cur- 
rent passed through the muscles, which would, in 
health, throw them into rigid contraction, will 
now excite the tremors and keep them proceeding, 


B2an On Alcohol. 


but will not excite complete contraction. So long 
as the tremors are present, the temperature of the 
body is depressed, falling even half a degree; but 
when they cease the temperature rises again, not 
to the natural standard, but to or near that which 
existed before the tremors were excited. After 
the tremors are once established, they continue 
without further administration of the alcohol for 
ten and twelve hours, and so slowly do they 
decline, they may remain in a slight degree for 
even thirty-six hours. They subside by remission 
of intensity and prolongation of interval of recur- 
rence. One fact of singular significance attaches 
itself to these muscular tremors. They are the 
tremors which occur in man during the stage of 
alcoholic disease, when there is set up that malady 
to which we give the name of delirium tremens. 
An ordinary intoxication with a lighter alcohol is 
insufficient to produce this extreme perversion of 
nervous and muscular power, but the introduction 
of one of these heavier alcohols, or, it may be, the 
excessive saturation cf the body with a lghter 
spirit, for on this point I am not sure, is sufficient 
to cause the tremulous motion. What the nature 
of these muscular movements 1s, what unnatural 
relationships exist between the nervous system, 
the muscles, and the blood, to lead to them are 
questions still unsolved. Involuntary, developed 
even against the will, excited by any external 
touch, attended with great reduction of tempera- 
ture, and remaining as long as the temperature is 
reduced, they indicate an extreme depression of 
animal force: a condition in which all the force af 


ee Es 


Action of Butylic Alcohol. 63 


life that remains has to be expended on the mere 
organic acts of life, on the support of the motions 
of the heart, the muscles of. respiration, and the 
functions of the secreting glands. The voluntary 
systems of nerve and muscle are indeed well-nigh 
dead, and recovery rests entircly on the mainten- 
ance of the organic nervous power. Still recovery 
will take place if the body be sustained by external 
heat and by internal nourishment. 

In the extreme stage of intoxication from butylic 
alcohol the red blood in the arteries loses its rich 
color, and the blood from the veins, which flows 
with difficulty, is of a dirty hue. The blood 
coagulates readily, but the clot is loose, and the 
fibrine of which it is composed separates in a 
coarse network or mesh. The little corpuscles of 
the blood run into each other, forming rolls or 
columns. Indced, it is wonderful how the blood 
circulates through the structures it should nourish. 
The vascular membranes of the brain are found 
charged with this tarry blood; the brain structure 
is softened, and gives the odor of the poison, and 
the muscles, when divided by the knife, cut with- 
out firmness, yielding from numerous points the 
same tar-like blood. The vascular organs—splcen, 
liver, lungs, kidneys—are equally changed, and in 


% 
< 


asimilar manner. Thcir fine structures are infil- 
trated with the deteriorated vascular fluid which 
was intended for their maintenancc, and even the 
secretions and cavities of the body are perverted 
‘by being charged with fluid derived from the un- 
natural blood. This is the state of the body of one 
who dies insensible after the delirium and tremors 


64 On Alcohol. 


which characterise the human malady, self-inflicted 
and terrible, known as delirium tremens. 


ACTION OF AMYLIC ALCOHOL: 


Amylic alcohol, the next of our series, is obtained 
by the fermentation of potato starch, or starch of 
grain, and when pure is a colorless fluid. Its 
weight, compared with water as 1,000, is 818, and 
it boils at 270° Fahr. It is from this alcohol that 
the active substance, nitrite of amyl, to which I 
have before referred, is derived. The odor of 
amylic alcohol is sweet, nauseous, and heavy. The 
sensation of its presence remains long. In taste it 
is burning and acrid, and it is itself practically in- 
soluble in water. When it is diluted with common 
alcohol it dissolves freely in water, and gives a 
soft and rather unctuous flavor, I may call it a 
fruity flavor, something like that of ripe pears. 
From the quantities of it imported into this coun- 
try it is believed to be employed largely in the 
adulteration of wines and spirits. 

Amylic alcohol, when it is introduced as an 
adulterant, is an extremely dangerous addition to 
ordinary alcohol, in whatever form it is presented, 
whether as wine or spirit. Its action on the body 
is the same as that of butylicalcohol. It produces 
three stages of insensibility, ending in the pro- 
foundest narcotism, or coma, followed by reduction 
of temperature and by muscular tremors. These 
tremors recur with the most perfect regularity of 
themselves, but they can be excited at any moment 
by touching the body, or blowing upon it, or even 


Action of Sodium and Potassium Alcohols. 65 


by a sharp noise, such as the snap of the finger. 
In all other respects the phenomena induced are 
the same as are observed from butylic alcohol, ex- 
cept that they are much more prolonged, from two 
to three days being sometimes required for the 
complete restoration of the animal temperature. 
The reason of this prolongation of action lies in the 
greater weight and the greater insolubility of this 
spirit ; that is to say, the force required to decom- 
pose it, or mechanically to lift it out of the body 
when it has once entered it, is so much greater 
than is required for the lighter spirits, which diffuse 
more readily through the secretions, volatilise by 
the breath or possibly undergo rapid decompo- 
sition. The odor of the substance remains for 
many hours in the animal tissues. Amylic alcohol 
acts upon some resins and resinous substances, dis- 
solving, I believe, certain of them more easily than 
the lighter spirits, but its peculiar odor prevents 
its application on a large scale. 


ACTION OF SODIUM AND POTASSIUM ALCOHOLS. 


The action of the sodium and potassium alcohols 
is exceedingly interesting in a physiological, al- 
though not in a practical point of view, except in 
respect to their various uses as chemical re-agents. 
They act on the living animal tissues as caustics, 
and will one day be considered of great service to 
the surgeon. Brought into contact with blood, in 
solution, there is produced by them an almost 
instant crystallisation of needle-like crystals spread 
out in beautiful arborescent filaments. This ar- 


66 On Alcohol. 


borescent appearance is identical with a crystall- 
sation which can be induced in these alcohois 
themselves, but there are also formed smaller 
radiant crystals due to the crystallisation of the 
crystalloidal matter of the blood-cells, and singu- 
larly like the forms which, since the time of Dr. 
Richard Mead, have been described as occurring 
in the blood after infection by the poison of the 
viper. 

These metallic alcohols are powerful antiseptics, 
like common alcohol, over which they have an 
advantage in that they more thoroughly harden 
soft structures. I have taken advantage of this 
action to employ them for the preservation of 
nervous matter, which is rapidly prone to decom- 
position. 

I should add that, by some chemists these alco- 
hols are called ethylates of sodium or potassium, a 
term which is thought to define more correctly 
their chemical construction. 


ACTION OF MERCAPTAN OR SULPHUR ALCOHOL, 


I have already referred briefly to this most 
cursous body of the alcohol series, describing it as 
an alcohol in which oxygen is replaced by sulphur. 
In experimenting with it a solution containing 5 
per cent. is sufficient, and the vapor of it may be 
inhaled in order to produce its effects. These are 
most remarkable. 

I found, by direct experiment, that the vapor is 
not irritating to breathe, but that its influence on 
the system is speedily pronounced. There is a 


Action of Mercaptan or Sulphur Alcohol. 67 


desire for sleep, and a strange, unhappy sensation, 
as 1f some actual or impending trouble were .at 
hand. This is succeeded by an casy but cxtreme 
sensation of muscular fatigue; the limbs feel too 
heavy to be lifted, and rest is absolutely necessary. 
There is, at the same time, no insensibility to pain, 
and no intoxication. The pulse is rendered fecble 
and slow, and remains so for one or two hours; 
but, in time, all the effects pass off, and active mo- 
tion in the air helps quickly to dispose of-them. 
On the inferior animals the action of mercaptan 
is equally peculiar. Frogs exposed to its vapor 
fall asleep, and seem to pass into actual death, ex- 
cept that the eye remains bright. They may be 
left in this apparently lifeless state for half an 
hour, then, removed into the air, they commence, 
in the course of an hour and a half or two hours, 
to breathe again, and gradually recover, precisely 
as if they were awaking from sleep. The action 
_of this alcohol on the animal body, though it pro- 
duces these extreme cffects, is less injurious than 
that of the other alcohols. It escapes rapidly by 
the breath, and in some new form, as a sulphur 
compound. It communicates to the breath an 
odor which is by no means uncommon in persons 
who indulge to a great extent in the use of or- 
dinary alcohol. This observation suggests a most 
important explanation of certain phenomena con- 
nected with the action of common alcohol. It 
appears to me that in some states there is actually 
produced in the living organism, by the vital 
chemistry, sulphur compounds, derived probably 
from the bile, a substance rich in sulphur, which 


68 On Alcohol. 


compounds, distributed by the blood to the ner- 
vous matter, create phenomena similar to those I 
have described as following upon the inhalation of 
mercaptan. Thus, under unnatural modes of hfe, 
the body may actually make its own poisons, and 
the doctor be often asked to remove what the 
patient, if he were a better chemist and a wiser 
man, would never produce for the exercise of the 
doctor’s skill. 


| EA ORG aed ad 


THE INFLUENCE OF COMMON OR ETHYLIC ALCO- 
HOL ON ANIMAL LIFE. THE PRIMARY PHYSIO- 
LOGICAL ACTION OF ALCOHOL. 


THE primary action of ethylic alcohol on animal 
life forms our next study. This is the alcoholic 
spirit which enters into wines, beers, and ordinary 
spirituous liquors. 

There are two modes in which this subject must 
be discussed. One relates to the mere physical 
action of alcohol upon the body, the other to its 
action as a food for the body. Of the varied sub- 
stances which we take into our systems, some, like 
chloroform, or opium, produce very marked phy- 
sical effects, which we may call physiological, but 
which have nothing to do with the nourishment of 
the organism, nor with the sustainment of its vital 
power. Other substances act as foods, producing 
certain continuous phenomena of structural build 
and of vital function. Alcohol is peculiar in that 
we are obliged to consider it, at the present time, 
from each of these points of view, and I now take 
up the first, | mean the purely physical action of 
alcohol, reserving the question of its qualities as a 
food for a future lecture. 

A very simple problem lies before us. The sum 
of £117,000,000 of money is invested in this country 


on alcohol as a commercial substance. Where 
69 


70 On Alcohol. 


does the alcohol go? We know that the larger 
part of it goes for consumption by human beings. 
A little—I mean, by comparison, a little—is used 
for the purposes of art and science, but the greater 
portion of it, practically*all but the whole of it, is 
consumed by human beings. Thus a question 
arises, Wwe may almost say, of engineering and com- 
merce, a question, therefore, particularly worthy of 
this Society, viz., What is the good of this invested 
capital, and of the substance which it supplies? It 
is not necessary for any of us to consider ourselves 
as physicians in studying this matter, but we may 
all consider ourselves as animal engineers, anxious 
to know the physical properties of agents which in- 
fluence the animal life. To put itin avery practical 
way, suppose that there was no question involved 
in regard to the influence of alcohol upon the body, 
but that in the course of the invention of motive 
engines—common inanimate engines, which can be 
made to exhibit motive power by the application 
of heat to water—it had originally become the 
practice from some circumstance to put into the 
engines so much spirit with the water, and to work 
the engines with this mixture. Then suppose 
somebody said, “‘ This is a very expensive process 
of working the engines ; may be they will work as 
well without the spirit.” You would naturally in- 
quire, “Can such be fact?””? And you would seek 
an engineer to fill the place I have now the honor 
to occupy, to explain to you-the mechanism of the 
engines. You would also beg him to explain and 
put before you facts which would bear upon the 
point, whether the admixture of spirit and water 


Absorption of Alcohol by the Lody. 71 


was useful or useless? Now, please, consider me 
to-night as an engineer, and the animal body as the 
engine I am to speak upon. I am not going to 
pildcess a word to you as a physician; I am not 
going to offer advice. I simply mean to place be- 
fore you, as far as I know them, the facts relating 
to the physical eficcts of this thing, alcohol, os 
it is put into one of those millions of engines which 
we call men. 

Alcohol will enter the body—the engine of 
which I am about to speak—by many channels. 
It can be introduced by injecting it under the skin 
or intoa vein. Exalted by heat into the form of 
vapor, it may be inhaled by man or animal, when 
it will penctrate into the lungs, will diffuse through 
the bronchial tubes, will pass into the minute air 
vesicles of the lungs, will travel through the minute 
circulation with a blood that is going over the 
air yesicics to. the heart, will condense in that 
blood, will go direct to the Icft side of the heart, 
thence into the arterial canals and so throughout 
the body. Or, again, the spirit can be taken in by 
the more ordinary channcl, the stomach. Through 
this channel it finds its way, by two routes, into 
the circulation. <A certain portion of it—the grcat- 
er portion of it—is absorbed direct by the veins of 
the alimen rtary s surface, finds its way straight into 
the larger veins, which lead up to the heart, and 
onwards with the course of the blood. Another 
portion is picked up by those small structures 
which proceed from below the mucous surface of 
the stomach, which are called v//7, and from whicl 
originate a serics of fine tubes that reach at last the 


72 On Alcohol. 


lower portion of a common tube known as the 
thoracic duct, the tube which ascends in front of 
the spinal column, and terminates at the junction 
of two large veins on the left side of the body, at 
a point where the venous blood, returning from 
the left arm, joins with the returning blood from 
the left side of the head on its way to the heart. 

Thus in whatever way the alcohol is introduced 
it enters the blood; the shortest way is that by in- 
halation, the longest and most ordinary way is by 
the stomach. Indeed, except for experimental 
purposes, the introduction 1s always by this latter 
and Jongest route, and we may, for our practical 
purposes, only think of alcohol as a fluid taken by 
the mouth into the stomach, and absorbed like a 
food or a drink from the surface of the alimentary 
canal. 

Suppose, then, a certain measure of alcohol be 
taken into the stomach, it will be absorbed there, 
but, previous to absorption, it will have to under- 
go a proper degree of dilution with water, for 
there is this peculiarity respecting alcohol when it 
is separated by an animal membrane from a watcry 
fluid like the blood, that it will not pass through 
the membrane until it has become charged, to 
a given point of dilution, with water. It is itself, 
in fact, so greedy for water, it will pick it up from 
watery textures, and deprive them of it until, by 
its saturation, its power of reccption is cxhausted, 
after which it will diffuse into the current of circu- 
lating fluid. 

To illustrate this fact of dilution, I perform a 
simple experiment. Into a bladder is placed a 


Diffusion through the Organism. 73 


mixture consisting of equal parts of alcohol and 
distilled water. Into the neck of the bladder a 
long glass tube is inserted and firmly tied. Then 
the bladder is immersed in a saline fluid represent- 
ing an artificial serum of blood. The result is, 
that the alcohol in the bladder absorbs water from 
the surrounding saline solution, and thereby a 
column of fluid passes up into the glass tube. A 
second mixture of alcohol and water, in the pro- 
portion this time of one part of alcohol to two of 
water, is put into another bladder immersed in 
like manner in an artificial serum. In this in- 
stance, a little fluid also passes from the outside 
into the bladder, so that there is a rise of water in 
the tube, but less than in the previous instance. A 
third mixture, consisting of one part of alcohol 
with three parts of water, is placed in another 
little bladder, and is also suspended in the artificial 
serum. In this case there is, for a time, a small 
rise of fluid in the tube connected with the blad- 
der; but after a while, owing to the dilution which 
took place, a current from within outwards sets in, 
and the tube becomes empty. Thus each bladder 
charged originally with the same quantity of fluid 
contains at last a different quantity. The first 
contains more than it did originally ; the second a 
little more; the third a little less. From the third 
absorption takes place, and if I keep changing and 
replacing the outer fluid which surrounds the 
bladder with fresh serum, I can in time, owing to 
the double current of water into the bladder 
through its coats, and of water and alcohol out of 
the bladder into the serum, remove all the alcohol. 


74 On, Alcohol. 


In this way it is removed from the stomach into 
the circulating blood after it has been swallowed. 
When we dilute alcohol with water before drinking 
it we quicken its absorption. If we do not dilute 
it sufficiently it is diluted in the stomach by trans- 
udation of water in the stomach until the required 
reduction for its absorption; the current then sets 
in towards the blood, and passes into the circulat- 
ing canals by the veins. 

All the rcturning veins end in the large trunks 
which terminate in the central organ of the circu- 
lation—the heart. The heart, a moving muscular 
organ, has four cavities; two above called the au- 
ricles, two below called the ventricles. The cavi- 
ties on the right side are called respectively the 
right auricle and right ventricle; the cavities on 
the leit side are called respectively the left auricle 
and the left ventricle. The right auricie reccives 
all the venous blood of the body, and transmits it 
to the right ventricle; the right ventricie arives 
the blood over the lungs where the blood 1s ar- 
terialised; the left auricle receives the blood from 
the lungs, and transmits it to the leit ventricle, 
which in turn drives it through the arterial tubes 
over the whole of the body, whence it returns 
again by the veins to the right side of the heart, 
and so on, in continuous circuit. 

Alcohol, therefore, entering the veins, makes its 
way in the course I have described through the 
right heart, through the lunes, through the left 
heart, through the body at large by the arteries. 
This 1s the course of its traycl in the organism. 
What does if do as it makcs the round? 


Diffusion through the Organism. 75 


As it passes through the circulation of the lungs it 
is exposed to the air, and some little of it, raised into 
vapor by the natural heat, is thrown off in expiration. 
Ifthe quantity of it be large this loss may be Spas: 

rable, and the odor of the spirit may be detected 1: 
the expired breath. If the quantity be small thie 
loss will be comparativ ip little, as the spirit wul 
be held in solution by the water in the blood. 
After it has passed Maroon the lungs, and has 
been driven by the leit heart over the arterial cir- 
cuit, it passes into what is called the minute circu- 
lation, or the structural circulation of the organism. 
The arteries here extend into very small vessels, 
which are called arterioles, and from these infi- 
nitely small vessels spring the equally minute 
radicals or roots of the veins which are ultimately 
to become the great rivers bearing the blood back 
to the heart. In its S passage through this minute 
circulation the alcohol finds its way to every organ. 
To this brain, to these muscles, to these secreting 
or excreting organs, nay even into this bony struc- 
ture itself, it moves with the blood. In some of 
these parts which are not excreting, 1t remains for 
a time diffused, and in those parts where there is a 
large percentage of water it remains longer than in 
other parts. From some organs which have an 
open tube for conveying fluids away, as the liver 
and kidneys, it is thrown out or eliminated, and in 
this way a portion of it is ultimately removed tr om 
the body. The rest passing round and round with 
the circulation, is. probably decomposed and car- 
ried off in new forms of matter; but concerning 
this, more on a future occasion 


76 On Alcohol. 


When we know the course which the alcohol 
takes in its passage through the body, from the 
period of its absorption to that of its elimination, 
we are the better able to judge what physical 
changes it induces in the different organs and 
structures with which it comes in contact. It first 
reaches the blood, but, as a rule, the quantity of it 
that enters is insufficient to produce any material 
effect on that fluid. If, however, the dose taken be 
poisonous or semi-poisonous, then even the blood, 
rich as it is in water—and it contains seven hun- 
dred and ninety parts in a thousand—is affected. 
The alcohol is diffused through this water, and 
there it comes in contact with the other constituent 
parts, with the fibrine, that plastic substance which, 
when blood is drawn, clots and coagulates, and 
which is present in the proportion of from two to 
three parts ina thousand; with the albumen which 
exists in the proportion of seventy parts; with the 
salts which yield about ten parts; with the fatty 
matters; and lastly, with those minute, round 
bodies which float in myriads in the blood (which 
were discovered by the Dutch philosopher, Leu- 
wenhock, as one of the first results of microscopi- 
cal observation, about the middle of the seven- 
teenth century), and which are called the blood 
globules or corpuscles. These last named bodies 
are, in fact, cells; their discs, when natural, have 
a smooth outline, they are depressed in the centre, 
and they are red in color; the color of the blood 
being derived from them. We have discovered 
in recent years that there exist other corpuscles or 
cells in the blood in much smaller quantity, which 





Action of Alcohol on the Blood. 77 


are called white cells, and these different cells float 
in the blood-stream within the vessels. The red 
take the centre of the stream; the white he ex- 
ternally near the sides of the vessels, moving less 
quickly. Our business is mainly with the red 
corpuscles. They perform the most important 
functions in the economy; they absorb, in great 
part, the oxygen which we inhale in breathing, and 
carry it to the extreme tissues of the body; they 
absorb, in great part, the carbonic acid gas which 
is produced in the combustion of the body in the 
extreme tissues, and bring that gas back to the 
lungs to be exchanged for oxygen there ; in short, 
they are the vital instruments of the circulation. 
With all these parts of the blood, with the water, 
fibrine, albumen, salts, fatty matter, and corpuscles, 
the alcohol comes in contact when it enters the 
blood, and, if it be in sufficient quantity, it pro- 
duces disturbing action. I have watched this dis- 
turbance very carefully on the blood corpuscles, 
for in some animals we can sce these floating along 
during life, and we can also observe them from 
men who are under alcohol by removing a speck 
of blood, and examining it with the microscope. 
The action of the alcohol, when it is observable, is 
varied. It may cause the corpuscles to run too 
closely together, and to adhere in rolis; it may 
modify their outline, making the clear-dcfined 
smooth outer edge irregular or crenate, or even 
starlike; it may change the round corpuscle into 
the oval form, or, in very extreme cases it may 
produce what I may call a truncated form of cor- 
puscles, in which the change is so great that if we 


78 On Alcohol. 


did not trace it through all its stages we should be 
puzzled to know whether the object looked at were 
indeed a blood-cell. All these changes are due to 
the action of the spirit upon the water contained 
in the corpuscles ; upon the capacity of the spirit 
to extract water from them. During c¥ery stage 
of modification of corpuscle thus described, their 
function to absorb and fix gases is impaired, and 
when the aggregation of the cells, in masses, is 
great, other ‘diffic eee arise, for the cells united 
togcther pass less easily than they should through 
the minute vessels of the lungs and of the general 
circulation, and impede the current, by which local 
injury is produced. 

A further action upon the blood instituted: by 
alcohol in excess, is upon the fibrine or the plastic 
colloidal matter. On this the spirit may act in two 
different ways, according to the degree in which it 
affects the water that holds the fibrine in solution. 
It may fix the water with the fibrine, and thus de- 
stroy the power of coagulation ; or it may extract 
the water so determinately as to produce coagula- 
tion. These facts bear on a new and refined sub- 

ject of research with which I must not trouble you 
further, except to add that the inquiry cxplains 
why In acute cases of poisoning by alcohol the 
blood is sometimes found quite fluid, at other times 
firmly coagulated in the vesscls. 

These are the only points I have time to touch 
upon in respect to . physical action of alcohol 
upon blood. I must pass next to blood vessels, 
and trace out the action upon those fine ramifica- 
tions of the larger vessels which we call the minute 


Action of Alcohol on the Blocd. 79 


circulation. Upon these parts the spirit exerts a 
singular influence, from which arise a series of 
phenomena, characteristic of action when even a 
moderate quantity of spirit is taken into the body. 
That we may follow out this position clearly, it 1s 
essential that I should for a few minutes put alco- 
hol out of sight altogether and describe the me- 
chanism and governance of this minute circulating 
system. 

If any of you ever visited the Royal College of 
Physicians you would find there a system of 
blood-vessels dissected and traced out by the im- 
mortal discoverer of the circulation of the blood 
himself, William Harvey; and I think it would 
strike you, as you looked on, that all the organs of 
the body, which constitute the body in its entirety, 
are built upon these minute vesscls. It is as 
though Harvey had suggested the thought that 
the vascular system was the primary part of the 
animal organisation, and that upon it were planted 
and developed all the structures. The arterics are 
all beautifully shown branching out into their ex- 
treme divisions and giving the outline of the 
limbs, of the brain, of the visceral parts, and of 
the other organs. The veins are scen springing or 
continuing from these extreme arterial parts, as 
rivers may be said to spring, and to form at last 
trunks of large and larger size by which they 
bring back the blood to the centre of the circula- 
tion to be vivified there and carried on again. 

From this distribution of blood in these minute 
vessels the structures of organs derive their con- 
stituent parts; through these vessels brain matter, 


80 On Alcohol. 


muscle, gland, membrane is given out from the 
blood by a refined process of selection of material, 
waich, up to this time, is only so far understood as 
to enable us to say tnat it exists. 

The minute and intermediate vessels are more 
intimately connected than any other part with the 
construction and with the function of the living 
matter of which the body is composed. Think 
you that this mechanism is left uncontrolled? 
No; the vessels, small as they are, are under dis- 
tinct control. Infinitely refined in structure, they 
nevertheless have the power of contraction and 
dilatation, which power is governed by nervous 
action of a special kind. If we pass to the lower 
class of animals, we find, running along the body, 
in addition to its vascular system, a series of 
points of nervous matter, consisting of what are 
called ganglia. These ganglia are connected to- 
gether in chain, and from them filaments of nerves 
emanate, which are distributed to all the active 
moving parts of the body. In such lower animals 
the nervous system thus described stands alone, 
and when we rise in the scale and come even to 
man we find still the same primitive nervous chain. 
But we find also now another and more highly de- 
veloped nervous system, the centres of which are 
locked up in the brain and spinal column, from 
which centres nerves of special sense go into the 
organs of sense, nerves of sensibility or common 
sensation go to the skin and other sensitive sur- 
faces, and nerves of voluntary motion go to the 
muscles, all combining to perform their respective 
functions in the animal economy. 


Nervous Systems of the Body. SI 


Thus man has two nervous systems: the primary 
nervous chain and the added centres, with their 
fibres. The two systems are connected by their 
fibres in different parts, but they are still distinct, 
both anatomically and functionally. The primary 
nervous system is called the system of the organic 
vegetative or animal life; it governs all those mo- 
tions which are purely involuntary, and its centres 
are believed by some, and I think with perfect cor- 
rectness, to be the seats of those faculties which 
we call emotional and instinctive. The centres of 
the brain and spinal cord, with their parts, are the 
centres of the motor and volitional and of the rea- 
soning powers ; of all those faculties, that is to say, 
which are directly under the influence of the 
will. 

Keep in mind, if you please, the two nervous 
systems, and add to the remembrance this one ad- 
ditional fact, that all those minute blood-vessels at 
the extremities of the circulation are under the 
control of the primary or organic nervous supply. 
Branches of nerves from those organic centres 
accompany every arterial vesscl throughout the 
body to its termination, and without direction from 
our will regulate the contraction and dilation of 
the blood-vessels to their most refined distribution. 
This fact was suspected by the older anatomists, 
but it remained for modern research to make it a 
demonstration. Thus it has now been proved that 
if the organic nervous supply of a part of the 
minute circulation be cut off by division of the 
organic nerve feeding that part, the vessels become 
paralysed, as these flexor museles of my hand, 


$2 On Alcohel. 


which now grasp so firmly, would be paralysed 
were their voluntary nervous supply divided. 

It will be clear at once that an important ad- 
vancement of knowledge respecting the course of 
he biood through the minute circulation has been 
Seale but our knowledge does not rest at this 

pint, When certain simple physical i Tes sions 
are made upon the organic nerves, the disturbance 
of their supply is ee ed by distant phenomena, 
and the blush which mantles, and the pallor which 
overspreads the cheek, under the influence. of 
mental emotion or shock, are phenomena of this 
order. 

I can bring to your notice an experiment, show- 
ing the production of paralysis, and of all the phe- 
nomena above quoted by the mcre action of cold 
upon the organic nervous fibre. By evaporating 
ether from the back of my hand quickly, I can 
freeze the skin, and thereby produce paralysis. I 
take the ether away, and now into the paralysed 
vessels, which are capable of offering no efficient 
resistance, the blood rushes, distending the ves- 
sels, remaining for a moment stagnant in them, 
and giving a brilliant red color or crimson blush 
over the part. I feel in this part the glow com- 
monly called hot-ache; it is the blush which oc- 
curs on the check, and it is from the same physio- 
logical condition. 

Still further in advance, and with the mention 
of the fact, I am brought back to the subject 
proper of my lecture: we have learned that cer- 
tain chemical agents can so influence the organic 
nervous chain as to disturb its functions, after the 


Paralysis of Blood-Vessels. 83 


manner of a pure physical act. When the pecu- 
liar fluid the nitrite of amyl, to which I have be- 
fore called your attention, came before me for in- 
vestigation, I divined, from the symptoms it pro- 
duced, that it influenced the organic nervous fibre 
precisely after the manner of a division of that 
hbre. I dipped a spill of paper into the liquid, 
brought that near to my nose, inhaled the vapor, 
and immediately felt my face in a red glow, as 
you see it again at this moment, and felt my heart 
beating rapidly, as I feel it beating at the present 
time. I reasoned, naturally, and as events proved, 
correctly, that this fluid, by its action on the or- 
ganic nerves, paralysed the vessels of the minute 
circulation, and finding this to obtain with one 
chemical agent | traced it in others, and found a 
class of chemical substances, all of which have this 
same property of relaxing the blood-vessels at 
their extreme parts. The whole series of the 
nitrites possess this power; ether possesses it; 
but the great point I want to bring forth from 
this description is, that the substance we are 
specially dealing with, alcohol, possesses the self 
same power. By this influence it produces all 
those peculiar effects which in every-day life are 
so frequently illustrated. It paralyses the minute 
blood-vessels, and allows them to become dilated 
with the flowing blood. 

if you attend a large dinner party, you will 
observe after the first few courses, when the wine 
is beginning to circulate, a progressive change in 
some of those about you who have taken wine. 
The face begins to get flushed, the eye brightens, 


84 On Alcohol. . 


and the murmur of conversation becomes loud. 
What is the reason of that flushing of the counte- 
nance? It is the same as the flush from blushing, 
or from the reaction of cold, or from the nitrite of 
amyl. It is the dilatation of vessels following 
upon the reduction of nervous control, which re- 
duction has been induced by the alcohol. In a 
word, the first stage, the stage of vascular excite- 
ment from alcohol, has been established. 

The action of the alcohol extending so far does 
not stop there. With the disturbance of power in 
the extreme vessels, more disturbance is set up in 
other organs, and the first organ that shares in it 
is the heart. ‘With each beat of the heart a cer= 
tain degrce of resistance is offered by the vessels 
when their nervous supply is perfect, and the 
stroke of the heart is moderated in respect both to 
tension and to time. But when the vessels are 
rendered relaxed, the resistance is removed, the 
heart begins to run. quicker, ike a watch from 
which the pallets have been removed, and the 
heart-stroke, losing nothing in force, is greatly 
increased in frequency, with a weakened recoil 
stroke. It is easy to account in this manner for 
the quickened heart and pulse which accompany 
the first stage of deranged action from alcohol, 
and you will be interested to know to what extent 
this increase of vascular action proceeds. The in- 
formation on this point is exceedingly curious and 
important. After I had observed the effect. of 
alcohol on the circulation generally, I attempted 
to calculate the rate at which it expedited the 
rate of circulation by observing its effect on the 


Paralysis of Blood Vessels. 85 


beat of the heart in the pigeon. Alcohol may be 
administered to this bird quite painlessly, and, as 
the animal quickly goes to sleep under the influ- 
ence, and is therefore perfectly quiet, the beatings 
of its heart can be calculated with precision. I 
traced in these observations an increase of beats 
of the heart amounting, in the course of two hours, 
to one-fourth beyond what was natural. Then I 
essayed to make researches on myself, but many 
circumstances intervened, connected with the per- 
sistent labor and anxiety of professional life, which 
prevented me conducting the necessary opera- 
tions so correctly as I desired, and as I might 
perhaps at another time have done. Fortunately, 
the information has been far more ably supplied 
by the researches of Dr. Parkes, of Netley, and 
the late Count Wollowicz. The researches of 
these distinguished inquirers are so valuable I 
make no apology for giving them in detail. The 
observers conducted their inquiries on the young 
and healthy adult man. They counted the beats 
of the heart, first at regular intervals, during what 
were called water periods, that is to say, periods 
when the subject under observation drank nothing 
but water; and next, taking still the same subject, 
they counted the beats of the heart during succes- 
sive periods in which alcohol was taken in increas- 
ing quantities. Thusstep by step they measured the 
precise action of alcohol on the heart, and thereby 
the precise primary influence induced by alcohol. 
The results are stated by themselves as follows :— 

The average number of beats of the heart in 24 
hours (as calculated from cight observations made 


86 On A lcohol. 


in 14 hours), during the first, or water period, was 
106,000; in the earlier alcoholic period it was 
127,000 or about 21,000 more; and in the later 
period it was 131,000 Or 25,000 more. 

“The highest of the daily means of the pulse 
observed during the first or water period was 
77.5; but on this day two observations are defi- 
cient. The next highest daily mean was 77 beats. 

“Jf, instead of the mean of the eight days, or 
73.57, we compare the mean of this one day, viz., 
77 beats per minute, with the alcoholic days, so as 
to be sure not to over-estimate the action of the 
alcohol, we find :— 

“On the goth day, with one fluid ounce of alco- 
hol, the heart beat 4,300 times more. 

“On the toth day, with two fluid ounces, 8,172 
times more. 

“On the 11th day, with four fluid ounces, 12,960 
times more. 

“Qn the 12th day, with six fluid ounces, 30,672 
times more. 

“On the 13th day, with eight fluid ounces, 23,904 
trmes more. 

“On the 14th day, with eight fluid ounces, 25,488 
times more. : 

“ But as there was ephemeral fever on the 12th 
day, it is right to make a deduction, and to esti- 
mate the number of beats in that day as midway 
between the 11th and 13th days, or 18,432. Adopt- 
ing this, the mcan daily excess of beats during the 
alcoholic days was 14,492, er an increase of rather 
more than 13 per cent. 

“The first day of alcohol gaye an excess of 4 


Action of Alcohol on the feart. o7 


per cent., and the last of 23 per cent.; and the 
mean of these two gives almost the same percent- 
age of excess as the mean of the six days. 

‘“ Admitting that each beat of the heart was as 
strong during the alcoholic period as in the water 
period (and it was really more powerful), the heart 
on the last two days of alcohol was doing one- 
hith more work. 

‘Adopting the lowest estimate which has been 
given of the daily work of the heart, viz., as equal 
to 122 tons lifted one foot, the heart during the 
alcoholic period did daily work in excess equal to 
lifting 15.8 tons one foot, and in the last two days 
did extra work to the amount of 24 tons lifted 
as far. 

“The period of rest for the heart was short- 
ened, though, perhaps, not to such an extent as 
would be inferred from the number of beats, for 
each contraction was sooner over. The heart, on 
the fifth and sixth days after alcohol was left off, 
and apparently at the time when the last traces of 
alcohol were eliminated, showed in the sphygmo- 
graphic tracings signs of unusual feebleness; and, 
perhaps, in consequence of this, when the brandy 
quickened the heart again, the tracings showed a 
more rapid contraction of the ventricles, but less 
power than in the alcoholic period. The brandy 
_ acted, in fact, on a heart whose nutrition had not 
been perfectly restored.” 

It will seem at first sight almost incredible that 
such an excess of work could be put upon the 
heart, but it is perfectly credible when all the 
facts are known. The heart of an adult man 


88 On Alcohol. 


makes, as we see above, 73.57 strokes per minute. 
This number multiplied by sixty for the hour, and 
again by twenty-four hours for the entire day, 
would give nearly 106,000 as the number of strokes 
per day. There is, however, a reduction of stroke 
produced by assuming the recumbent position and 
by sleep, so that for simplicity’s sake we may take 
off the 6,000 strokes, and speaking generally may 
put the average at 100,000 in the entire day. With 
each of these strokes the two ventricles of the 
heart, as they contract, lift up into their respective 
vessels three ounces of blood each, that is to say, 
six ounces with the combined stroke, or 600,000 in 
the twenty-four hours. The equivalent of work 
rendered by this simpler calculation would be 116 
foot tons; and if we estimate the increase of work 
induced by alcohol we shall find that four ounces 
of spirit increase it one-eighth part; six ounces, 
one-sixth part ; and eight ounces, one-fourth part. 

The stage of primary excitement of the circula- 
tion thus induced lasts for a considerable time, but 
at length the heart flags from its over action, and 
requires the stimulus of more spirit to carry it on 
in its work. Let us take what we may call a mo- 
derate amount of alcohol, say two ounces by vol- 
ume, in form of wine, or beer, or spirits. What is 
called strong sherry or port may contain as much 
as twenty-five per cent. by volume. Brandy over 
fifty ; gin, thirty-eight; rum, forty-cight; whisky, 
forty-three; vin ordinaire, eight; strong ale, four- 
teen; champagne, ten to eleven; it matters not 
vhich, if the quantity of alcohol be regulated by 
the amount present in the liquor imbibed. When 


Congestion of Vital Organs. 89 


we reach the two ounces, a distinct physiological 
effect follows, leading on to that first stage of ex- 
citement with which we are now conversant. The 
reception of the spirit arrested at this point, there 
need be no important mischief done to the organ- 
ism; but if the quantity imbibed be increased, 
further changes quickly occur. We have seen that 
all the organs of the body are built upon the vas- 
cular structures, and therefore it follows that a 
prolonged paraiysis of the minute circulation must 
of necessity lead to disturbance in other organs 
than the heart. 

By common observation the flush seen on the 
cheek during the first stage of alcoholic excitation 
is presumed to extend merely to the parts actually 
exposed to view. It cannot, however, be too 
forcibly impressed that the condition is universal 
in the body. If the lungs could be seen, they too 
would be found with their vessels injected ; if the 
brain and spinal cord could be laid open to view, 
they would be discovered in the same condition ; 
if the stomach, the liver, the spleen, the kidneys, 
or any other vascular organs or parts could be 
exposed, the vascular engorgement would be 
equally manifest. In the lower animals I have 
been able to witness this extreme vascular condi- 
tion in the lungs, and there are here presented to 
you two drawings from nature, showing, one the 
lungs ina natural state of an animal killed by a 
sudden blow, the other the lungs of an animal 
killed equally suddenly, but at a time when it was 
under the influence of alcohol. You will sce, as 
if you were looking at the structures themselves, 


gO On Alcohol, 


how different they are in respect to the blood 
which they contained, how intensely charged with 
blood is the lung in which the vessels had been 
paralysed by the alcoholic spirit. 

I once had the unusual, though unhappy, oppor- 
tunity of observing the same phenomenon in the 
brain structure of a man who, in a paroxysm of al- 
coholic excitement, decapitated himself under the 
wheel of a railway carriage, and whose brain was 
instantaneously evolved from the skull by the 
crash. The brain itself, entire, was before me 
within three minutes after the death. It exhaled 
the odor of spirit most distinctly, and its mem- 
branes and minute structures were vascular in the 
extreme. It looked as if it had been recently in- 
jected with vermilion. The white matter of the 
cerebrum, studded with red points, could scarcely 
be distinguished, when it was incised, by its natu- 
ral whiteness; and the pia-mater, or internal vascu- 
lar membrane covering the brain, resembled a 
‘delicate web of coagulated red blood, so tensely 
were its fine vessels engorged. 

I should add that this condition extended 
through both the larger and the smaller brain, 
the cerebrum and cerebellum, but was not s 
marked in the medulla or commencing portion 

f the spinal cord. 

The action of alcohol continued beyond the first 
stage, the function of the spinal cord is influenced. 
Through this part of the nervous system we are 
accustomed, in health, to perform automatic acts 
of a mechanical kind, which proceed systemati- 
cally even when we are thinking or speakine on 


Action on the Nervous Centres. Ol 


other subjects. Thus a skilled workman will con- 
tinue his mechanical work perfectly, while his 
mind is bent on some other subject; and thus we 
all perform various acts in a purely automatic 
way, without calling in the aid of the higher cen- 
tres, except something more than ordinary occurs 
to demand their service, upon which we think be- 
fore we perform. Under alcohol, as the spinal 
centres become influenced, these pure automatic 
acts cease to be correctly carried on. That 
the hand may reach any object, or the foot be 
correctly planted, the higher intellectual centre 
must be invoked to make the proceeding secure. 
There follows quickly upon this a deficient power 
of co-ordination of muscular movement. The ner- 
vous control of certain of the muscles is lost, and 
the nervous stimulus is more or less enfeebled. 
The muscles of the lower lip in the human sub- 
ject usually fail first of all, then the muscles of the ~ 
lower limbs, and it is worthy of remark that the 
extensor muscles give way earlier than the flex- 
ors. The muscles themselves by this time are also 
failing in power; they respond more feebly than 
is natural to the nervous stimulus; they, too, are 
coming under the depressing influence of the 
paralysing agent, their structure is temporarily 
deranged, and their contractile power reduced. 

This modification of the animal functions under 
alcohol marks the second degree of its action. In 
young subjects there is now, usually, vomiting with 
faintness, followed by gradual relief from the bur- 
den of the poison. 

The alcoholic spirit carried vet a further degree, 


Q2 Ox Alcohol. 


the cerebral or brain centres become influenced ; 
they are reduced in power, and the controlling in- 
fluences of will and of judgment are lost. As these 
centres are unbalanced and thrown into chaos, the 
rational part of the nature of the man gives way 
before the emotional, passional, or organic part. 
The reason is now off duty, or is fooling with duty, 
and all the mere animal instincts and sentiments 
are laid atruciously bare. The coward shows up 
more craven, the braggart more boastful, the cruel 
more merciless, the untruthful more false, the carnal 
more degraded. “/z vino veritas’ expresses, even 
indeed to physiological accuracy, the true condi- 
tion. The reason, the emotions, the instincts, are 
all in a state of carnival, and in chaotic feebleness. 

Finally, the action of the alcohol still extending, 
the superior brain centres are overpowered; the 
senses are beclouded, the voluntary muscular pros- 
tration is perfected, sensibility is lost, and the body 
lies a mere log, dead by all but one-fourth, on 
which alone its life hangs. The heart still remains 
true to its duty, and while it just lives it feeds the 
breathing power. And so the circulation and the 
respiration, in the otherwise inert mass, keeps the 
mass within the bare domain of life until the poison 
begins to pass away and the nervous centres to re- 
vive again. It is happy for the inebriate that, as a 
rule, the brain fails so long before the heart that 
he has neither the power nor the sense to continue 
his process of destruction up to the act of death of 
his circulation. Therefore he lives to die another 
day. 

Thus there are four stages of alcoholic action in 


Action on the Nervous Centres. 93 


the primary form :—-(a) A stage of vascular excite- 
ment and exhaustion ; (6) a stage of excitement and 
exhaustion of the spinal cord, with muscular per- 
turbation; (c) a stage of unbalanced reasoning 
power and of volition; (7) a stage of complete 
collapse of nervous function. 

Such is an outline of the primary action of alco- 
hol on those who may be said to be unaccustomed 
to it, or who have not yet fallen into a fixed habit 
of taking it. For a long time the organism will 
bear these perversions of its functions without ap- 
parent injury, but if the experiment be repeated 
too often and too long, if it be continued after the 
term of life when the body is fully developed, when 
the elasticity of the membranes and of the blood ves- 
sels is lessened, and when the tone of the muscular 
fibre is reduced, then organic series of structural 
changes, so characteristic of the persistent effects of 
spirit, become prominent and permanent. Then the 
external surface becomes darkened and congested, 
its vessels, in parts, visibly large; the skin be- 
comes blotched, the proverbial red nose is defined, 
and those other striking vascular changes which 
dishgure many who may probably be called mode- 
rate alcoholics, are developed. These changes, be- 
longing as they do to external surfaces, come under 
direct observation; they are accompanied with 
certain other changes in the internal organs, which 
we shall discover in a future lecture to be more 
destructive still. 


LEGTURE IV, 


THE POSITION OF ALCOHOL AS A FOOD. EFFECTS 
OF ALCOHOL ON THE ANIMAL TEMPERATURE. 
HYGIENIC LESSONS. 


THE question that lies before us for discussion 
in this lecture is short and definite. It is included 
in the three words: Is alcohol food? 

We have studied in the previous lecture the 
purely physical action of alcohol on the animal 
body, that which stands apart from the action of 
food, and we have learned from the study that over 
the nervous system and over the vascular supply 
this spirit exerts a specific influence. We now in- 
quire whether the influence ends there, or whether 
there may be, in addition, either a sustaining, and 
constructing, or a heat-giving power—that is to 
say, a force-giving quality init. If there be, then 
the simple physical effects are perchance tolerable, 
or at all events are not sufficient to militate against 
the advantages which lie on the food side of the 
question. 

It may be well to rest for a moment to consider 
the position of men and animals upon the-earth in 
relation to the means given to them for their sup- 
port as living, moving, and, in the higher animals, 
thinking structures. This position is well-defined. 
The theory that man was made originally out of 
the dust of the earth is, after all, the most scientific 

94 


Natural Fluid Foods. 95 


theory that has ever been advanced as to his 
primeval origin, if the word dust be only extended 
So as to include the actual compound substance of 
the earth. For in the earth are to be found not 
only all the clements out of which he is constructed, 
but even certain of the elements in the same kind of 
combination as we find them in him. In the earth 
water, salts, and organic matter are found; in man 
the same are found. The man is in many respects 
of motion a reflex of the motion of the earth, pre- 
senting periodicities of movements, and of move- 
ments in a circle in like mode. As if to complete 
the analogy, this remains true, that the earth 
yields spontaneously to man, either from herself 
directly or from the vegetable kingdom which hes 
between her and man, all the requirements for 
his existence. Whatever, therefore, man invents, 
though it may seem to be a great necessity, is not 
a necessity except to those who, being trained to 
its use, have been led artificially to believe it 
essential. Thus nature has produced water and 
milk for man to drink, and they are, in truth, all: 
the fluids that are essential. This lesson, which 
nature teaches by her rule of provision for the 
necessities of animal life, is supplemented by many 
other facts, each equally authoritative. There is 
ever before us the great experiment that all classes 
of living beings beneath man require as drink none 
other fluids except those I have named. We sce 
the most useful of these animals performing labori- 

us tasks, undergoing extremes of fatigue, bearing 
vicissitudes of heat and of cold, and enduring 
work, fatigue, and vicissitude for long scrics of 


96 On Alcohol. 


years, sustained by their solid food, with no other 
fluid than simple water. We see again whole 
nations and races of men who labor hard, endure 
fatigue and exposure, and who live to the end of a 
long and healthy life, taking with their solid sus- 
tenance water only as a beverage. 

When we turn to the physiological construction 
either of man or of a lower animal, we discover 
nothing that can lead us to conceive the necessity 
for any other fluid than that which nature has 
supplied. The mass of the blood is composed of 
water, the mass of the nervous system is composed 
of water, the mass of all the active vital organs is 
made up of the same fluid: the secretions are 
watery fluids, and if in any of these parts any 
other agent than water should replace it, the re- 
sult is an instant disturbance of function that is 
injurious in proportion to the displacement. 

When we turn therefore to the use of such a 
fluid as alcohol under any of its disguises—as spirit, 
as wine, as beer, as cider, as perry, as liqueur,— 
we are driven dé priorz to look upon it as something 
superadded to the necessities of life ; to look upon 
it, in a word, as a luxury. In such sense it has 
always been received amongst those nations which 
have most indulged in it. It is something added 
to the ordinary life; something unnecessary, but 
agreeable. Wine, added to the meal, transforms 
the meal into a feast ; 1t is supposed to make glad 
the heart, but it is never supposed that if the wine 
were not possessed the life would be shortened. 
When now we offer wine, it is, by the effect of 
habit and education, an offering of a thing that is 





Constructive Materials of the Body. 97 


super-necessitous, and in such wise a compliment, 
an indication of desire or of willingness to be ex- 
ceedingly hospitable. 

All the evidence of a general kind which can be 
gathered from these observations points to the 
usclessness, for man, of such an artificial agent as 
alcohol. But, after all, an assumption so derived 
may be false. We have already seen that when 
alcoholic spirit is taken into the animal body it 
produces in it exceedingly marked effects; it may 
therefore, by accident, I might almost say, play in 
some manner the part of a food and supplement 
water. Indeed, it is a form of water in which a 
compound of carbon and hydrogen has replaced 
hydrogen. Let us, then, ask the question: Can 
alcohol be in any sense accepted as performing 
any other part in the body save that physical part 
which we have considered? Can it have hap- 
pened that man, by his invention, has added, to 
nature, a food? And let us answer the question 
as candidly as the facts of experiment and ex- 
perience will permit. 


CONSTRUCTIVE MATERIALS OF THE BODY. 


The living animal body is constructed out of a 
few simple forms of matter which possess, during 
life, the power of motion. It is, in its living state, 
anoun andaverb. Whatever helps to maintain 
it in perfect order of construction, whatever cn- 
ables it to move of its own mcre will and motion, 
may be considered as a food. The one givcs mat- 
ter and mass, the other gives force or spirit to the 
mass. With the progress of organic chemistry, 


08 On Lilcoheé. 


after the discovery of the art of organic analysis, 
it soon became evident that what are called foods 
are divisible into two great classes; those which 
supply material or tissue, and those which supply 
heat or other variety of force. Gradually it was 
detected that the building foods all contain the 
element nitrogen as an essential part, and that the 
force-supplying foods are free of nitrogen and are 
hydro-carbons, substances that will undergo com- 
bustion by oxidation, and liberate force for the 
motive uses of the economy. So, foods have for a 
long time been sharply classified as nitrogenous 
or tissue-feeding, and as respiratory or heat-pro- 
ducing. At the present moment this long accept- 
ed view is undergoing some ee oceatim It is 
being clicited that the nitrogenous foods are to a 
certain deeree heat- producing ; but I need not at 
this stave enter on the nice question involved. I 
may safe ly; ott the practical purpose we have in 
view, Ict the division of the classes of foods re- 
main as described above 
The nitrogenous foods cxist in the animal body 
in the form of what is called colloidal matter, the 
word colloidal being a term signifying a jelly -like 
substance. The purest form of this matter is founc 
in the blood in the white, clastic, plastic matter, 
called fibrinc. By repeated washings of a portion 
of this substance, I have prepared here, from the 
blood of the ox, a beautiful specimen of this col- 
loid of the blood. Of asimilar colloidal substance 
the moving muscles are formed. In a fluid state, 
and permanently iluid at the temperature of the 
living body, the colloid called albumen forms part 


3 
Cie 
vi 
Ls 


10 
1 
Ath 


Alcohol as a Fat-forming ood. 99 


of organic structure. Under the names of ge¢la- 
tine and chondrine, a nitrogenous colloidal sub- 
stance forms the organic matter of the skelcton, 
of the cartilages, of the sheaths of muscles, of the 
tendons. The eye-ball is constructed out of a 
series of colloidal tissues. All the membrancs 
which envelope the visceral organs, and which 
possess elasticity, are colloidal. The outer cover- 
ing or skin is colloidal, the nails are the same. 
Even in the brain and nervous matter there is dis- 
tributed a colloid. Thus, if we sum up the various 
parts of the body we may say that all the active 
masses of structure are nitrogenous and colloidal. 

In combination with this active matter there are, 
however, two other material ingredients, viz., water 
and saline substance. Upon its combination with 
water the activity of the colloid depends. Upon 
the saline rests the various kinds of combination 
of the colloid with the water. In bone the gela- 
tine is combined with a salt, called phosphate of 
lime, with carbonate of lime, and other salts, in 
much larger proportion than itself. In fibrine the 
colloidal substance is nearly divested of salinc; 
but in all parts these three material compounds 
make up the animal structures. 

Lying outside these structures in the natural 
state, but really as an adventitious ,formation, is 
one other animal product, viz., fat; a substance 
detrimental to the motion of the active parts when 
present in excess, but at the same time capable of 
combustion, and of yielding heat by the process. 

We have now before us the constructive or 
building parts of the animal body. [Excepting the 


100 Ox Alcohol. 


water, the salts, and the fat, they all contain nitro- 
gen, and they take their specific quality from that 
specific fact. We know that the source of them is 
the vegetable kingdom, that they are formed by 
nature in that kingdom, are transferred from the 
vegetable to the animal, are not made by any na- 
tural process within the animal, have not yet been 
made by any artificial process known to the che- 
mist, and can therefore only be supplied from the 
one natural supply. 

Alcohol contains no nitrogen, it has none of the 
qualities of these structure-building foods; it is 
incapable of being transformed into any of them ; 
it is therefore not a food in the sense of its being 
a constructive agent in the building up of the body. 

In respect to this view there is, I believe, now 
no difference of opinion amongst those who have 
most carefully observed the action of alcohol. 
There..is, however, a diflerencomnarclation 40a 
action as a fat-forming food. It appears to be on 
evidence that men and animals beginning, while 
ina perfect state of health, to take in excess cer- 
tain fluids containing alcohcl become fattened. 
Notoriously, ale and beer fatten; and in some 
parts of the country certain animals—calves, for 
instance—are rapidly fattened by the process of 
feeding them with a mixture of barley flour and 
gin. But through all these apparent evidences 
there may run an error. The fattening may not 
be due to the alcohol itself, but to the sugar or the 
starchy material that is taken with it. As a mat- 
ter of gencral experience on which I have tricd 
to arrive at the truth with as much accuracy as 





Alcohol as a fat-forming flood. 10% 


can be obtained, | am led to the conclus on that 
pure spirit drinkers among men, [I mean.those who 
do not mix sugar with the spirit, and who dislike 
spirit which is artificially sweetened, are not fat- 
tened by the spirit they take. This tallies also 
with the observations on the action of absolute 
alcohol on inferior animals, for they certainly, 
under that influence, if they are allowed liberty 
to move freely, do not fatten. | 

The question of the effect of alcohol in fattening 
presents still another difficulty. Alcohol, when it 
is largely taken, unless the will of the imbiber be 
very powerful, is wont to induce desire for undue 
sleep, or at least desire for physical repose. Under 
such conditions there is an interference with the 
ordinary nutritive processes. The wasted pro- 
ducts of nutrition are imperfectly climinated, the 
respiration becomes slower and less effective, and 
there is sct up a series of changes leading, inde- 
pendently of the alcohol as a direct producer of 
fat, to development and to deposit of fatty tissue 
in the body. All these circumstances militate 
against the hypothesis of the origin of fatty ma- 
terial direct from alcohol, nor 1s there any obvious 
chemical fact that supports the hypothesis. We 
understand chemically the transformation of 
starchy matter into one form of sugar, end we 
infer that in the animal body sugar is transmu- 
table into fat. We know also that we can trans- 
mute sugar into alcohol, but as yet we see no way 
back from alcohol into sugar; if we did, the dif- 
ficulty of tracing alcohol into fat would probably 
be over. 


102 On Alcohol. 


Physiological argument nevertheless lends some 
countenance to the view that alcohol may, by an 
unknown process, be transferable into fat. It is 
true that some confirmed alcoholics who do not 
wax fat in the ordinary sense of the term, that is 
to say, who do not fill out with fat, from the sepa- 
ration of fatty matter in their cellular tissue out- 
side the vital organs, do, in certain instances, 
undergo a process of fatty change within their or- 
ganic structures. Their muscles, including the 
heart, become the centres of the devencrannn 
called “fatty,” and by the interposition of cells of 
fat in the minute muscular clements, the activity 
of the fabric is destroyed, sometimes to a fatal 
destruction. The same degencrative change may 
extend also to other organs, to the brain and to 
such active glands as the liver and the kidney. 

At first view it occurs to the mind that here . 
evidence of effect upon cause. ‘At the same tim 
itis not so clear that the cficct 1s direct from i 
cohol; for when we proceed to examine into all 
the data that lie before us, we discover such an 
absence of uniformity in differing examples of the 
fatty change that we lose tect as the clue to 
discovery. Some alcoholics truly present the 
fatty modification of tissue, other alcoholics do not 
present it, so that alcohol may be in active opera- 
tion and may neither be promoting the production 
of fat from other material nor yielding it. Lastly, 
the fatty change of tissue may progress, in the 
absence of alephel, in the tissues at those who 
altogether abstain. 

In conclusion, therefore, on this one voint of al- 


Alcohol as a Fat-forming food. 103 


cohol, its use as a builder of the substantial parts 
of the animal organism, I fear I must give up all 
hope of affirmative proof. It does not certainly 
help to build up the active nitrogenous struc- 
tures. It probably does not produce fatty mat- 
ter, except by an indirect and injurious interference 
with the natural processes. 

If alcohol be not a substance out of which the 
animal tissues are formed, may it not be a source 
of energy of actual motion; may it not supply the 
power of doing work? Alcohol, we see, contains 
two elements that will burn in the presence of 
oxygen, viz., carbon and hydrogen, and although 
by their combination already with oxygen in the 
alcohol a certain measure of their potential energy 
is lost, they are still capable of combining with 
more oxygen. This is proved by various experi- 
ments. When alcohol is burned, that is to say, 
when its combustible elements combine with free 
oxygen, there results from the chemical combina- 
tion a certain degree of heat. The heat produced 
does not approach that obtained by an equal 
weight of hydrogen, it is not so great as that pro- 
duced by an equal weight of carbon, but it is 
greater than that caused by the combustion of 
phosphorus, and very much greater than that 
caused by the combustion of sulphur. 

The combustion thus spoken of is that active 
combustion which is excited when a light is 
brought into contact with alcohol so that its 
vapor may burn. But it is not actually necessary 
that such instant active combustion should be set 
up. If we distribute alcohol over a wide surface 


TOA On Alcohol. 


in the presence of some chemical substances it 
will then by its combination with oxygen liberate 
a greater or lesser degree of heat. If we saturate 
a portion of paper with alcohol, and on that paper 
pour a little of the finely-divided powder called 
platinum black, we at once get evidence of heat 
which may be so active that perfect combustion 
may ensue. In this instance the alcohol is trans- 
formed, as in burning, in great part, nay it may be 
altogether, into carbonic acid and water, which 
means the completed combustion. If in place of 
absolute alcohol, in this experiment, we were to 
use alcohol diluted with water, then instead of 
obtaining the active combination and combustion 
we should get a slower oxidation with the pro- 
duction of substances to which attention has 
already been directed, viz., aldehyde, acetic acid, 
and volatile acetic ether. 


DISPOSAL OF ALCOHOL IN THE ORGANISM. 


We are brought now to one of the most im- 
portant parts of our study. We see that, under 
favoring conditions, alcohol will oxidise in the 
presence of the air. We see that it will oxidise in 
two ways—actively, with the production of much 
heat and with the formation of carbom. acid and 
water; passively, with the production of alde- 
hyde and acetic acid. 

In the human body do any similar changes take 
place? Throughout the whole of the vast sheet 
of the minute circulation there is ever in progress, 
during life, a process of slow oxidation of carbon 





Disposal of Alcohol in the Organism. 105 


and hydrogen, by which heat is produced, and 
carbonic acid and water are produced. The heat 
is proved by the animal warmth which is ever 
present in our bodies while we live; the carbonic 
acid and water, as products, are proved by their 
continued presence in the secretions from the 
lungs, skin, and other organs. 

Alcohol, we have seen, is carried by the blood 
into this minute circulation. Is it possible it can 
pass through that ordeal and undergo no chemical 
change? If it does undergo any change, what is 
its nature? These questions have occupied the 
attention of many gifted minds; but they are not 
yet solved. Let me endeavor to put the position 
in which they stand plainly before you. 

The earlier physiologists of this century came, 
naturally cnough, to the conclusion that the 
alcohol taken into the body is consumed there 
with the evolution of heat. A certain deveclop- 
ment of heat in the superficies of the body, and a 
certain sensation of glow which follows upon the 
imbibition of spirit lent countenance to this sus- 
picion. But in course of time, independently of 
any knowledge of the efiect produced by alcohol 
in the minute circulation of the blood, it began to 
be doubted whether alcohol was disposed of in 
the organism by its combustion. Some observers 
had noticed, in conducting the examination of the 
body after death from excess of alcohol, that the 
odor of the substance was present in the tissues, 
especially in the nervous tissue, ancl it was doubt- 
ed whether the alcohol might not under some 
circumstances remain in the organism without 


106 On Alcohol. 


undergoing any change at all. In 1860 two emi- 
nent Frenchmen—Lallemand and Perrin, assisted 
by Duroy, published a prize essay on alcohol, in 
which this view was maintained, or, as the authors 
would probably say, was originated ; for in truth 
they were the first to state the view on direct 
scientific evidence. From the result of many ex- 
periments, they came to the conclusion that 
aicohol taken into the living body accumulates 
in the tissues, especially in the liver and in the 
brain, and that it is eliminated by the fluid secre- 
tions, notably by the renal secretion, as alcohol. 
They sought in the different tissues for evidence 
of the secondary products of the oxidation of 
alcohol, for aldehyde, acetal, acetic acid, and they 
found none of those products, except some acetic 
acid in the stomach, which acid they concluded 
was formed from the alcohol received directly 
into the stomach, and from the action exerted 
upon it there by the gastric juice. The experi- 
ments carried on by these inquirers were so 
numerous and careful, and the results they arriy- 
ed at were so definitely stated, that their labors 
were for a season accepted as conclusive by many 
men of science, and by the majority of the public. 
It was ascertained by other experimentalists that 
alcohol is eliminated by the system in the direct 
way, as alcohol, and the question of elimination 
rested as if it had been solved. 

The interval of credence in these assertions was 
not very prolonged. sn English physician soon 
commenced to cross a lance with his learned 
French peers, and to point out certain distinct 


Disposal of Alcohol tn the Organisiw. 107 


errors in their results. I have no doubt many of 
you know, before I mention his name, that he to 
whom I refer was the physician who last year lost 
his life from the performance of his professional 
duties—the late Dr. Anstie. Respecting this ob- 
server, whose friendship I owned for many years, 
it is meet for me to pay this public tribute of re- 
spect; that no man I ever knew combined with 
vigor of mind, more incomparable industry and 
courage, or a moré honorable regard for scientific 
truth and honesty. The subject we are now con- 
sidering has lost no investigator more ably learned 
for the work that still remains to be done. 

From Dr. Anstie came the earliest expressions 
of doubt relative to this hypothesis of what is 
called the direct elimination of alcohol by the 
secretions, and from him have come the latest 
objections. His arguments have been sustained 
abroad by Schulinus, and, in this country, by Drs. 
Thudichum and Dupré, whose work on wine will, 
even in another century, be more highly prized, if 
that be possible, than it is now. The sum and 
substance of the labors of these observers is stated 
ina few words. They prove that while it is true 
that, under certain circumstances, alcohol taken 
into the body will pass off in the secretions un- 
changed, the quantity so eliminated is the merest 
fraction of what has been injected, and that there 
must be some other means by which the spirit is 
disposed of in the organism. In a lecture I de- 
livered on this subject in the year 1869, I ventured 
to suggest, in commenting upona series of Dr. Thu- 
dichum’s remarkable researches, that perhaps one 


108 On Alcohol. 


element of research was wanting to prove conc!u- 
sively the fallacy of the direct elimination hypo- 
thesis. I thought that sufhcient time had not 

een allowed between the administration of the 
spirit and the final determination made for it in the 
excreted fluids. It was not, I argued, shown how 
much spirit the tissues would hold unchanged. 
The objection was sound, but it has been removed 
by more recent experiment. 

In the last research conducted by Anstie, in 
which he was assisted by Dupré, the results of the 
experiments were unmistakable in their bearing on 
the points now under our consideration. The his- 
tory of these labors is recorded in full in the last 
paper written by Dr. Anstie, and published in the 
journal called the Practitioner, for July, 1874. 

The test that had been commonly employed for 
determining the presence of alcohol in the fluid 
suspected of containing it, was the color test. A 
solution is made consisting of bichromate of potas- 
sa, with diluted sulphuric acid. When to this 
solution alcohol is added, there is a change of 
color from the brownish red to green; owing to 
the reduction of the chromic acid to the green 
oxide of the base chromium. By marking the 
difference of color produced a scale can be adopted 
which will show the extent of the reduction, and 
thereby the amount of the spirit that has caused 
the change. This process was improved by Dr. 
Dupré. He distilled the fluid in which alcohol 
was believed to be present, and then, after treating 
the distillate with the bichromate and sulphuric 
acid solution, he tested with a standard solution 


Disposal of Alcohol in the Organism, — 109 


of soda for the amount of acetic acid which would - 
be produced by the oxidation of alcohol were that 
fluid present. 

This modification of test was and is a very con- 
siderable advance, since it enabled the observers 
to extend their determinations with greater accu- 
racy of detail. In the research they conducted 
with it two facts of singular interest were elicited. 
The first fact was discovered by Dr. Dupré. It is 
that from the secretions of persons who do not 
drink alcohol at all a fluid can be distilled which 
affects the chromic test as if alcohol were actually 
present in the secreted fluids, and that this hith- 
erto unsuspected product is oxidised into an acid 
so like acetic acid it cannot be distinguished from 
it, and is apparently identical with it. To be plain, 
Dr. Dupré’s discovery suggests that no man can 
be, in strict scientific sense, a non-alcoholic, inas- 
much as, ‘‘ will he nill he,” he brews in his own 
economy a “wee drap.” It is an innocent brew 
certainly, but it is brewed, and the most ardent 
abstainer must excuse it. ‘“ Argal, he that is not 
guilty of his own death shorteneth not his own life.” 
The fault, if it be one, rests with nature, who, ac- 
cording to our poor estimates, is no more faultless 
than the rest of her sex. 

The second fact, which came chiefly from the 
labors of Dr. Anstie, is that from animals under 
alcohol, not one of the secretions, not all the secre- 
tions combined, yield any more than a fractional 
amount of the alcohol that has been administered. 
The experiments were by necessity made on the 
inferior animals, but they supplied none the less 


110 On Alcohol. 


= 


conclusively the fact stated. It was proved that 
an animal, a terrier dog, weighing ten pounds, 
could take with comparative impunity nearly 2000 
grains of absolute alcohol in ten days, and that on 
the last day of this regimen he only eliminated by 
all the channels of elimination 1.13 grains of alco- 
hol. This fact was of itself sufficiently remarkable, 
but another still more important remains to be 
told. In completion of his research, when an ani- 
mal. had been treated with alcohol, as above de- 
scribed, Anstic killed it, instantly and painlessly, 
two hours after it had received the last quantity 
95 grains—of spirit. Then the whole body, in- 
cluding every fragment of tissue with all the fluid 
and solid contents, was subjected to analysis, with 
the result of discovering only 23.66 grains of spirit. 

We are driven by the evidence now before us to 
the certain conclusion that in the animal body 
alcohol is decomposed; that is to say, a certain 
portion of it (and if a certain portion why not the 
whole?) is transmutable into new compounds. 
The inference that might be drawn is fair enough 
that the alcohol is lost by being burned in the 
body. It is lost in the body, and out of the body 
it will burn. If it will burn in the organism it will 
supply force, for it enters as the bearcr of so much 
potential energy. In combining with oxygen is 
there then a development of force or heat to the 
extent that would be developed in the combustion 
of the same quantity in the lamp, or from the dis- 
tribution of it over the platinum black? At the 
same time, and in corroboration, is the product of 
its combustion, carbonic acid, to he discoyered in 





Effect on Animal Temperature. 111 


the excretions? If there be heat, and if there be 
product of carbon consumed in oxygen, then alco- 
hol must rank as a heat-forming food. 


DOES ALCOHOL CAUSE INCREASE OF ANIMAL 
HEAT ? 


In putting before you this inquiry, I am pre- 
pared to answer it by direct knowledge gained 
from individual experiment. In the course of 
some researches I had to make for reports ren- 
dered to the British Association for the Advance- 
ment of. Science, it became part of my duty to as- 
certain what effect certain chemical agents exert 
over the animal temperature. Amongst these 
agents was alcohol. 

At the time when my researches commenced— 
viz., in the year 1864, there was nothing definitely 
known on the subject. The thermometer was not 
then in such general use as it 1s now, and it had 
not been applied, as far as I know, to this particu- 
lar determination. Generally, however, it had 
been assumed by the majority of persons that 
alcohol warms the body, and to “ take just a drop 
to keep out the cold” had been the practice which 
the experience of ages seemcd to justify. It is 
fair, at the same time, to say that Dr. Lecs, and 
some other far-secing observers, had for many 
years held and asserted a different view. They 
had not entered into minuteness of experimental 
detail, but they had observed from the cfiects of 
alcohol on those who had been cxposed to cold in 
the extreme North and in other regions of ice and 
snow, that the drinkers did not live on like other 


I12 On Alcohol. 


men. Thus, in so far as I had what/‘is called 
experience to guide me, I found conflict of 
opinion. It was not my business, however, to 
accept guidance of this kind, but to appeal to the 
only safe guide, the direct interrogation of nature 
by experiment. 

It were impossible for me to recount the details 
of the long research,—extending, with intervals of 
rest, over three years,—which was conducted in 
my laboratory, to determine the influence of alco- 
hol on the animal temperature. The effects were 
observed on warm-blooded animals of different 
kinds, including birds; on the human subject in 
health, and on the same subject under alcoholic 
disease. Similar experiments were made in differ- 
ent external tempcratures of the air, ranging from 
summer heat to ten degrees below freezing point. 
The whole were carried on from experiment to 
experiment, without regard cither to comparison 
or result until the general character of result 
began to proclaim that a rule existed which could 
rarely be considered exceptional. The facts ob- 
tained I may epitomise as follows: 

The progressive stages of change of animal 
function from alcohol are four in number. The 
first is a stage of excitement when there exists that 
relaxation and injection of the blood-vessels of the 
minute circulation with which we have become 
conversant?’ The second is the stage “ofrexmmtes 
ment with some muscular inability and deficient 
automatic control. The third is a stage of ram- 
bling, incoherent, emotional excitement, with loss of 
voluntary muscular power, and ending in helpless 


Effect on Animal Temperature. 113 


unconsciousness. The fourth and final stage is 
that in which the heart itself begins to fail, and in 
which death, in extreme instances of intoxication, 
closes the scene. These stages are developed 
in all the warm-blooded animals, and the changes 
of temperature throughout the whole are re- 
latively the same. 

In the first stage the external temperature of 
the body is raised. In birds—pigeons—the rise 
may amount to a full degree, on Fahrenheit’s 
scale ; in mammals it rarely exceeds half a degree. 
In man it may rise to half a degree, and in the 
confirmed inebriate, in whom the cutaneous vessels 
are readily engorged, | have seen it run up to a 
degree and a half. In this stage the effect on the 
extremities of the nerves is that of a warm glow, 
like what is experienced during the reaction from 
cold. 

The heat felt in this stage might be considered 
as duc to the combustion of the alcohol: it is not 
so; 1t is in truth a process of cooling. It is from 
the unfolding of the larger sheet of the warm 
blood and from the quicker radiation of heat from 
that larger surface. During this stage, which is 
comparatively bricf, the internal temperature is 
declining; the expired air from the lungs is indi- 
cating, not an increase, but the first period of re- 
duction in the amount of carbonic acid, and the 
reddened surface of the body is so reduced in 
tonicity that cold applied to it increases the suf- 
fusion. It is this most deceptive stage that led the 
older observers into the error that alcohol warms 
the body 


II4 On Alcohel. 


In the second stage, the temperature first comes 
down to its natural standard, and then declines 
below what is natural. The fall is not consider- 
able. In birds it reaches from one and a half to 
two degrees. In other animals, dogs and guinea 
pigs, it rarely exceeds one degrec; in man it is 
confined to three-fourths of a degree. In areom 
heated to 65° or 70° the decrease of animal tem- 
perature may not actually be perceived; but it is 
quickly detected if the person in whom it is pre- 
sent pass into a colder atmosphere, and it lasts, 
even when the further supply of alcohol is cut off, 
for a long period-—viz., from two and a half to 
three hours. It is much prolonged by absence of 
food. 

During the third degree the fall of temperature 
rapidly increases, and as the fourth stage is ap- 
proached it reaches a decline that becomes actually 
dangerous. In birds the reduction may be five 
degrees and a half, and in the other animals three. 
In man it is often from two and a half to three de- 
grees. There is always during this stage a pro- 
found sleep or coma, and while this lasts the tem- 
perature continues reduced. 

It is here worthy of incidental notice that, as a 
rule, the sleep of apoplexy and the sleep of drunk- 
enness may be distinguished by a marked differ- 
ence in the animal temperature. In apoplexy the 
temperature of the body is above, in drunken- 
ness below, the natural standard of 98” of Fahren- 
heit’s scale. | 

Under favorable circumstances a long period is 
required before the body recovers its natural 


Lifiect on Antimal Temperature. 115 


warmth after such reduction of heat as follows the 
extreme stage of alcoholic intoxication. With the 
first conscious movements of recovery there is a 
faint rise, but such is the depression that these very 
movements exhaust and lead to a further reduction. 
I have known as long a period as three days 
required, in man, to bring back a steady natural 
return of the full animal warmth. 

Through every stage, then, of the action of al- 
cohol—barring that first stage of excitement—I 
found a reduction of animal heat to be the special 
action of the poison. To make the research more 
perfectly reliable, I combined the action of alcohol 
with that of cold. A warm-blooded animal, in- 
sensibly asleep in the third stage of alcoholic nar- 
cotism, was placed in a chamber, the air of which 
was reduced in temperature to ten degrees below 
freezing point, together with another similar ani- 
mal which had received no alcohol. J found that 
both sleep under these circumstances, but the 
alcoholic sleeps to die; the other sleeps more 
deeply than is natural, and lives so long as the 
store of food it is charged with continues to sup- 
port life. Within this bound it awakes, in a 
warmer air, uninjured, though the degree of cold 
be carried even lower, and be continued for a 
much longer time. 

One more portion of evidence completes the re- 
search on the influence of alcohol on the animal 
temperature. As there is a decrease of tempera- 
ture from alcohol, so there is proportionately a de- 
crease in the amount of the natural products of 
the combustion of the body. The quantity of 


116 On Alcohol. 


carbonic acid exhaled by the breath is propor- 
tionately diminished with the decline of the animal 
heat. In the extreme stage of alcoholic insensi- 
bility,—short of the actually dangerous, —the 
amount of carbonic acid exhaled by the animal 
and given off into the chamber I constructed for 
the purposes of observation was reduced to one- 
third below the natural standard. On the human 
subject in this stage of insensibility the quantity 
of carbonic acid exhaled has not been measured, 
but in the earlier stage of alcoholic derangement 
of function the exhaled gas was measured with 
much care by a very earnest worker, whose recent 
death we have also to deplore— Dr. Edward 
smith. In these early stages Dr. Smith found 
that the amount of carbonic acid was reduced in 
man, as I have found it in the lower animals, so 
that the fact of the general reduction may be con- 
sidered as established beyond disputation. 

We are landed then at last on this basis of know- 
ledge. An agent that will burn and give forth 
heat and product of combustion outside the body, 
and which is obviously decomposed within the 
body, reduces the animal temperature, and pre- 
vents the yield of so much product of combustion 
as is actually natural to the organic life. 

What is the inference? The inference is that 
the alcohol is not burned after the manner of a 
food which supports animal combustion; but that 
it rs decomposed into secondary products, by oxida- 
tion, at the expense of the oxygen which ought to 
be applied for the natural heating of the body. 

For some time to come the physiological world 


Effect on Animal Tentperature. II 
ot f 4 


will be studiously intent on the discovery of the 
mode by which alcohol is removed from the or- 
ganism. It isa subject on which I shall one day 
be able to speak, I hope, with some degree of ex- 
perimental certainty, but on which at this moment 
I am not prepared to offer more than an indication 
of the probable course of research. I may ven- 
ture to add, in advance, two or three suggestions 
to which my researches, as far as they go, point. 

Firstly, I believe there is a certain determinable 
degree of saturation of the blood with alcohol, 
within which degree all the alcohol is disposed of 
by its decomposition. Beyond that degree the 
oxidation is arrested, and then there is an accumu- 
lation of alcohol, with voidance of it, in the un- 
changed state, in the secretions. 

Secondly, the change or decomposition of the 
alcohol in its course through the minute circula- 
tion, in which it is transformed, is not into car- 
bonic acid and water, as though it were burned, 
but into a new soluble, chemical substance, proba- 
bly aldehyde, which returns by the veins into the 
great channels of the circulation. 

Thirdly, I think I have made out that there 
is an outlet for the alcohol, or for the fluid pro- 
duct of its decomposition, into the alimentary canal, 
through the secretion of the liver. Thrown into 
the canal, it is, | believe, subjected there to further 
oxidation, is in fact oxidised by a process of fer- 
mentation attended with the active development 
of gaseous substances. From this surface the ox1- 
dised product is in turn re-absorbed in great part 
and carried into the circulation, and is disposed of 


118 On Alcoho!. 


by combination with bases or by further oxida- 
tion. 

Here, however, I leave the theoretical point to 
revert to the practical, and the practical is this ; 
that alcohol cannot by any ingenuity of excuse for 
it, be classified amongst the foods of man. It neither 
supphes matter for construction nor heat. On the 
contrary, it injures construction and it reduces 
temperature. 


EFFECT OF MUSCULAR’ POWER. 


Behind the question of the effect of alcoho. upon 
the animal temperature was another subject for in- 
quiry. It was fair to ask whether, if heat were not 
produced by the spirit, some additional stimulus 
might be communicated by it to the muscular fibre. 
There is nothing in what we see relating to the 
action of alcohol in man that would lead us to 
suppose it capable of giving an increased muscular 
power, and it is certain that animals subjected even 
for short periods of time to its influence lose their 
power for work in a marked degree. Indeed, if 
we were to treat our domestic animals with this 
agent in the same manner that we treat ourselves, 
we should soon have none that were tamable, 
none that were workable, and none that were 
edible. I thought it, nevertheless, worth the in- 
quiry whether at any stage of the alcoholic excite- 
ment living muscle could be induced to show an 
extra amount of power. I therefore submitted 
muscle to this test. I gently weighted the hinder 
limb of a frog until the power of contraction was 
just overcome ; then by a measured electrical cur- 


Effect on Muscular Power. 119 


rent I stimulated the muscle to extra contraction, 
and determined the increase of weight that could 
thus be lifted. This decided upon in the healthy 
animal, the trial was repeated some days later on 
the same animal after it had received alcohol in 
sufficient quantities to induce the various stages of 
alcoholic modification of function. The result was 
that through every stage the response to the elec- 
trical current was enfeebled, and so soon as narco- 
tism was developed by the spirit, it was so en- 
feebled that less than half the weight that could be 
lifted in the previous trial, by the natural effort of 
the animal, could not now be raised even under the 
electrical excitation. 

In man and in animals, during the period be- 
tween the first and third stages of alcoholic distur- 
bance, there is often muscular excitement, which 
passes for increased muscular power. The muscles 
are then truly more rapidly stimulated into motion 
by the nervous tumult, but the muscular power is 
actually enfeebled. 


HYGIENIC LESSONS. 

The facts I have endeavored to bring forward 
in this as well as in the last lecture will suggest to 
the mind many thoughts bearing upon the health 
of individuals and communities, in so far as health 
is affected by the potent agent, alcohol. I need 
hardly, indeed, presume to offer any suggestions, 
but one or two of a specially practical and every- 
day character may be ventured. 

1 am bound to intimate that the popular plan of 
administering alcohol for the purpose of sustaining 


120 On Alcohel, 


the animal warmth is an entire and dangerous 
error, and that when it is brought into practice 
during extremely cold weather it is calculated to 
lead even to fatal consequences, from the readiness 
with which it permits the blood to become con- 
gested in the vital organs. I cannot too forcibly 
impress the fact that cold and alcohol act, physio- 
logically, in the same manner, and that, combined 
in action, every danger resulting from either agent 
is doubled. 

Whenever we see a person disposed to meet the 
effects of cold by strong drink it is our duty to en- 
deavor to check that effort, and whenever we see 
an unfortunate person under the influence of alco- 
hol it is our duty to suggest warmth as the best 
means for his recovery. These facts prompt many 
other useful ideas of detail, in our common life. 
If, for instance, our police were taught the simple 
art of taking the animal temperature of persons 
they have removed from the streets in a state of 
insensibility, the results would be most beneficial. 
The operation is one that hundreds of nurses now 
carry out daily, and applied by our police-officers, 
at their stations, it would enable them not only to 
suspect the difference between a man in an apo- 
plectic fit and a man intoxicated, but would sug- 
gest naturally the instant abolition of the practice 
of thrusting the really intoxicated into a cold and 
damp cell, which to such a one is actually an ante- 
room to the grave.* 


* Since the delivery of this lecture I am informed that in the 
London Metropclitan District the cells in which the intoxicated 


[Hygienic Lessons. I2I 


Once more: I would earnestly impress that the 
systematic administration of alcohol for the pur- 
pose of giving and sustaining strength is an entire 
delusion. Iam not going to say that occasions do 
not arise when an enfecbled or fainting heart is 
temporarily relieved by the relaxation of the 
vessels which alcohol, on its diffusion through the 
blood, induces; but that this spirit gives any per- 
sistent increase of power by which men are en- 
abled to perform more sustained work is a mistake 
as serious as it is universal. 

Again, the belief that alcohol may be used wkh 
advantage to fatten the body is, when it is acted 
upon, fraught with danger. For if we could suc- 
cessfully fatten the body we should but destroy it 
the more swiftly and surely ; and as the fattening 
which follows the use of alcohol is not confined to 
the external development of fat but extends to a 
degeneration through the minute structures of the 
vital organs, including the heart itself, the danger 
is painfully apparent. 

In conclusion, whatever good can come from 
alcohol, or whatever evil, is all included in that 
primary physiological and luxurious action of the 
agent upon the nervous supply of the circulation 
to which | have endeavored so earnestly to direct 
your attention. If it be really a luxury for the 
heart to be lifted up by alcohol; for the blood to 
course more swiftly through the brain; for the 
thoughts to flow more vehemently ; for words to 


are received are not open to the objections named. Iam glad 
to be able to make this correction, 


123 On Alcohel. 


come more fluently ; for emotions to rise ecstati- 
cally, and for life to rush on beyond the pace set 
by nature ; then those who enjoy the luxury must 
enjoy it,—with the consequences.’ 


Pee UR Tes 


THE SECONDARY ACTION OF ALCOHOL ON THE 
ANIMAL FUNCTIONS, AND ON THE PHYSICAL DE- 
TERIORATIONS OF STRUCTURE INCIDENT TO ITS 
EXCESSIVE USE. , 


IT is my business in this course of lectures to 
treat upon the specilic action of absolute alcohol. 
I have therefore specially avoided all reference to 
the spirituous drinks of which it forms a part. As 
a rule in every form of strong drink the source of 
the action of it, for good or for evil, 1s the spirit it 
contains, and the influence of the drink is potent 
according to the amount of that spirit prescnt in 
it. To put the matter simply, if all the liquors 
sold under various names—wince, brandy, gin, rum, 
whisky, ale, stout, perry, cider,—were divested of 
their alcoholic spirit, they would contain compara- 
tively little of anything that would affect those 
who partook of them. 








DELETERIOUS ADDITIONS TO ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. 


As I am, however, about to Suan of the dele- 
terious action of alcohol, it 1s fair | should admit 
that some bad effects do spring from so-called wine 
and kindred drinks independently Ole the ware 
spirit they contain. Something less of evil than 
now obtains would be secured if none but natural 
wines and ales were taken by the people. To 

123 


I24 On Alcohol. 


return t» the times before brantwein was distilled, 
and to have no intoxicating beverages save pure 
wine and sound ale, were doubtless an improve- 
ment on the state of things which now exists; for, 
in truth, at the present time the characters of pure 
ethylic wine are hardly known. <A Jdond-fide wine 
derived from the fermentation of the grape purcly, 
cannot contain more than seventeen per cent. of 
alcohol, yet our staple wines, by an artificial pro- 
cess of fortifying and brandying, which means the 
adding of spirit, are brought up in sherrics to 
twenty, and in ports to even twenty-five per cent. 
Some wines and spirits are believed to be charged 
with amylic alcohol. Other wines are charged 
with foreign volatile substances to impart what is 
called bouquet, and still other so-called wines—I 
allude specially to the effervescing liquids sold 
under that name—are actually often undergoing 
the fermenting process at the time they are im- 
bibed, and thus are invited to complete their fer- 
mentation in that sensitive bottle, the human 
stomach, 

If the subject were specially looked into, a very 
important chapter of facts might be collected 
bearing upon the injurious effects of these addi- 
tions to ales, wines, and spirits. I have noticed 
the evils that follow upon the administration of an 
alcoholic drink that has been adulterated with 
amylic alcohol, and have shown that they are 
exceedingly serious. The disturbances excited by 
the other faults, when they do not arise from ex- 
cess of absolute alcohol, are shown in symptoms 
of indigestion and in the promotion of an acid 





Absinthe. 125 


condition of tne secretions of the body, beyond 
what is natural. 

Presuming therefore it be actually determined 
by any one that he will take some alcoholic fluid, 
ke will do nearest to that which is most wise if he 
takes wines or other spirituous drinks in which 
the quantity of alcohol is simply confined to the 
natural amount, in which the process of fermenta- 
tion has ceased, and in which no foreign substance 
has been introduced to add either bouquet, body, 
piquancy, narcotising influence, or other artificial 
quality. 


ABSINTHE. 


_ The admitted addition of some actively poison- 
ous substances to alcohol, in order to produce a 
new luxury,1is the evil most disastrous. The drink 
sold under the name of adsizthe 1s peculiarly for- 
midable. In this liquor five drachms of the es- 
sence of absinthium, or wormwood, are added to one 
hundred quarts of alcohol. Thus the liquor is not 
only very strong as a mere alcoholic drink, but it is 
charged with another agent which has been dis- 
covered to exert the most powerful and dangerous 
action upon the nervous functions. The essence 
of absinthium in doses of from thirty to fifty grains 
preduces in dogs and rabbits signs of extreme 
terror and trembling, followed by stupor and in- 
sensibility. In larger doses it causes epileptiform 
convulsions, foaming at the mouth, and stertor of 
the breathing. Its effects, as they occur from the 
taking of it in the form of absinthe in man, have 
been most ably described to me by one who in- 


126 On Alcohol. 


dulged in it until it induced in him the peculiar 
epileptiform seizure. He described the effects as 
resembling those produced by aschish, the nar- 
cotic of the East which has been known for ages 
as the zepenthes of Homer, and which owes its 
properties to extract of Indian hemp or Cannabis 
wndica. The partial insensibility caused by the 
absinthe is attended with the ideal existence of 
long intervals of time, in which the events of a 
whole life are arrayed and appreciated, to be suc- 
ceeded by terrific hallucinations and intellectual 
weakness, ending in unconscious struggling as if 
for life. In time, if the use of the absinthe be 
continued, these phenomena become permanently 
established and the result is inevitably fatal. 

The doubly poisonous absinthe 1s made the 
more seductive to its victims by the fact that it 
excites a morbid craving for food which is never 
felt except when it is tempted by the destroying 
agent. Indeed such are the terribic consequences 
incident to this agent, that I agree with Dr. De- 
caisne in maintaining that it ought, by legal pro- 
vision, to be forbidden as an article for human 
consumption in all civilized communities. Even 
in small quantities taken daily, say one or two 
wineglassfuls, it causes quickly a permanent dys- 
pepsia, and, what is of still more consequence, it 
tempts its victims on and on, so that they cannot 
take food until absinthe has prompted the desire 
for it, by which time they are too often hopelessly 
and mortally in its power. 

Until recently absinthe has not been publicly 
offered for sale in this country on a large scale. 


Addition of Other Agents. 127 


But now, unhappily, the poison is openly an- 
nounced even here, and the consumption is on the 
increase ; I am doing therefore a public duty in 
denouncing its use solemnly from this platform, 
whence so much that is beneficial to society has 
for a century past been spoken. 


ADDITION OF OTHER AGENTS. 


The intentional additions of poisonous agents to 
the alcohol of ales, wines, and spirits pale when 
absinthe appears in sight, but they are not to be 
ignored. It is true that we very often hear ac- 
counts of the effects for evil of bad wine, when, in 
fact, the evil is due to the excess cf ordinary alco- 
hol that has been taken by the complainant. At 
the same time it 1s not to be denied that there 
exists in our midst a system of mixing, compound- 
ing, blending, and reducing wines and _ spirits, 
which, carried even to artistic perfection, is ad- 
ditionally prejudicial to the business of selling the 
various alcoholic beverages. 

To be just to our own age, this artistic per- 
formance is not an invention of it. The adultera- 
tion of wine is indeed one of the oldest devices, 
extending from the Greeks and Romans onwards 
to this day. In the Middle Ages many prohibitory 
acts were passed against it by various govern- 
ments. As late as the close of the seventeenth 
century an act was passed by Duke Everhard 
Louis of Wiirtemberg making it an offence pun- 
ishable with death and confiscation of property to 
adulterate wine with bismuth, sulphur, or the salt 
of lead called litharge, now known as the yellow 


128 On Alcohol. 


protoxide of lead. In the year 1705-6, John Jacob 
Ernhi, of Lslingen, was actually beheaded for 
carrying out adulteration with the forbidden 
poisonous lead compound. 

Into our modern civilization a different system 
of treating strong drinks, in order to rectify bad 
qualities or to impart new, is, as a rule, followed. 
The plan of using gypsum or sulphate of lime to 
remove the acidity of wine, a practice that was 
followed both by the Greeks and Romans, is, how- 
ever, still resorted to; so also is the practice of 
using lme for the same purpose, and for which 
Jack Falstaff so severely criticises the landlord of 
the “Boar's Head”’: 

“You rogue, here’s lime in this sack: There is 
nothing but roguery to be found in villanous man: 
yet a coward is worse than a cup of sack with 
lime in it; a villanous coward.” 

But, on the whole, the new day has brought 
new plans and new intentions, having reference to 
the different forms of drinks, namely, ales, wines, 
and spirits, which pass from the hands of the ven- 
dor to the consumer. 


ALES. 


The practice of adulteration the least hurtful is 
carried on in ales; that at all events is my ex- 
perience of the ales sold in London, and I speak 
from a practical knowledge of the facts. A few 
years ago a well-known statist asked me to under- 
take for him a research on the ales sold in London, 
with a view to the detection of the adulterations 
in them. For many wecks this gentleman himself 


Ales. 129 


collected beers and ales from different retail houses 
in the most diverse parts of this metropolis, and 
neither trouble nor expense was spared in the ex- 
amination of these samples, in order to arrive at 
correct results as to the composition of the fluids 
thus retailed. I may state at once that I did not 
in any one instance find a truly dangerous adultera- 
tion. I found that to many samples common salt 
had been added, and to some sugar; but the grand 
adulteration was water, by which the consumer 
was, if I may so express it, fraudulently benefited 
and the government proportionately defrauded. If 
this aqueous adulteration were not carried on, our 
registrars of deaths and collectors of revenues 
would both show heavier totals. 

There 1s a prevailing notion that to malt liquor, 
bitter substances, such as strychnine, or narcotic 
substances, such as cocculus indicus, are added. 
Neumann says that in his time, that is just one 
hundred years ago, clary, cccculus indicus, and 
Bohemian rosemary were added to malt liquors in 
order to increase their intoxicating powers, and he 
states that the last-named substance, Bohemian 
rosemary, produced a raving intoxication. I know 
it is also urged, in this day, that there is no known 
application for the quantity of cocczlius indicus that 
is sold except it be for the adulteration of malt 
liquors. I will not dispute the matter, but [ con- 
tent myself with stating that I have never detected 
any foreign body of the kind, and that in the whole 
of my experience of the effect of malt liquors on 
man, I have never known a symptom produced 
indicative of the effects of such substances. 


130 On sAlleohol. 


Lhe stronger ales and stouts are injurious main- 
ly from the alcohol they contain. Those which 
have not ceased fermenting, and from which 
gas is escaping, produce a persistent dyspepsia 
in persons who indulge in them, a dyspepsia at- 
tended with flatulency, painful distension of the 
stomach, and with loss of proper muscular power 
of the stomach, by which deficiency the trituration 
of food is impeded and rendered imperfect. At 
the same time the action of the gastric fluids upon 
the food is made less effective. There is at the 
present day in the market a substance used as an 
addition to ales, which is called saccharina. It is 
sold in the form of the ordinary sugar-loaf. It is 
made by the action of diluted sulphuric acid upon 
starchy matter, and is, in fact,a grape sugar. It 
gives to the ale body and swectness. It is in itself 
a fattening food, and as it is the same as that form 
of sugar which is found in those who sufier from 
the disease called diabetes, and which produces the 
symptoms of that disease, it cannot be taken in 
quantity without some indirect risk of danger. 


, WINES. 


¢ 


The evils arising from wines, apart from those 
which are due to the natural ethylic alcohol they 
should contain, are derived from several sources. 
The wine that has not ceased to ferment, and when 
uncorked is found to be charged with gas, is often 
as injurious as beer in which the fermentation has 
not ended. It produces a fermenting process 
within the body, and gives rise to those phenome- 
na of dyspepsia to which allusion has already been 


Wer 2s: I3I 


made. Wine that has once beenacid and has been 
treated with lime in order that the acidity may be 
neutralised, is open to the objection of an excess 
of salts of ime. It has been urged against wines 
treated in this manner that they lead to calculous 
disease when they are taken in quantity for long 
periods. I must answer to this suggestion that i 
have not had experience of the slightest evidence 
that would support it, nor do I think there is suf- 
ficient of such wine consumed to warrant any con- 
clusion of the kind. Wine if adulterated with 
amylic alcohol is unquestionably dangerous, owing 
to those physiological effects prbetiedd by She 
adulterant to which I specially directed attention 
in the second lecture of this course. Wines that 
are beaded are injurious, owing to the foreign 
mixture for beading that has been added to them, 
and which I shall presently describe. 

Some substances that form in natural wines ex- 
ert an effect on the animal body when they are 
taken into it. These substances are principally 
aldehyde and acetic acid. Aldehyde when it is 
present in wine communicates to it a natural bou- 
quet. You will find on the table a pure specimen 
of aldehyde, and you will also find specimens of 
natural wines, kindly lent to me by Mr. Denman, 
in which this change of alcohol by oxidation has 
taken place. Inthe year 1848 the late Sir James 
Simpson, of Edinburgh, discovered that aldehyde 
would produce anzesthetic sleep when its vapor 
was inhaled, and I have since submitted it to ex- 
periment with a view of testing its action on the 
living body. I find it is a rapidly intoxicating 


122 On Alcohol. 


agent, sharp to the nerves of sense, and acting 
with greater rapidity than alcohol, and with a less 
prolonged effect, for it is soluble in water, and is 
so volatile that it boils at 72° Fahr. It is there- 
fore quickly diffused and quickly eliminated from 
the body. The action of aldehyde upon the liy- 
ing body has been as yet insufficiently studied. 
It has a close relation to the narcotic action of al- 
cohol, and the symptoms it produces are so similar 
I am inclined to believe that the narcotism which 
follows the administration of alcoholic spirit is 
partly due to its production. 

The presence of acetic acid in wines is on the 
whole not injurious, if the wine in other respects 
be free of adulteration. The tendency of this acid 
itself is to promote the digestion of albuminous 
foods, and I have sometimes observed in persons 
whose digestive power is feeble, signs of improve- 
ment under its use. In saying this I do not how- 
ever wish to convey that therefore a rough acid 
wine should be taken for indigestion, for the acid 
in such instances may be administered without the 
wine and perhaps with greater advantage. I only 
wish to record that acidity of wine, in which fer- 
mentation has ceased, is not a source of additional 
injury. The astringent acid—called tannic—of 
some wines has been advanced as useful in the 
cases of certain persons who suffer from laxity of 
body, and who require astringent remedies. It 
would be wrong to dispute that there may be in 
wine a virtue of this kind, but it is not peculiar 
to wine. It can be secured when it is wanted 
without wine at all, and in a more certain way. 





Spirits. 133 


This remark holds equally good in respect to what 
may be favorably spoken of as the saline substan- 
ces which some wines naturally present. I mean 
to say that the saline constituents can be adminis- 
tered with more certain and therefore with better 
effect, independently of wine. 


SPIRITS. 


Into the different spirits commonly sold, several 
substances are introduced which exert more or 
less of baneful influence on the body that receives 
them. The addition of amylic alcohol has been 
already condemned and need not again be men- 
tioned, and I omit intentionally, for the sake of 
brevity, a great number of other added substances 
which do not seem to me to be active for evil, 
though they were possibly better left out of the 
animal organism. After these are withdrawn there 
remain many other agents which cannot fairly be 
omitted from our consideration. There is oil of 
juniper, oil of bitter almonds, potassa, alum, nitric 
acid, oil of vitriol, or sulphuric acid, and butyric 
acid. In even small quantities every one of these 
agents is injurious to the body if it be taken for 
any long continued period of time. The oil of 
juniper is an active diuretic, and thereby is inju- 
rious to the excreting powcr of one of the most 
important of the vital organs. The oil of bitter 
almonds contains, unless it be specially purified, 
hydrocyanic or prussic acid, and exerts then in 
small and often-repeated quantities a prejudicial 
influence on the nervous functions. Potassa causes 


134 Ox Alcohol, 


a dry and caustic action upon the mucous mem- 
brane of the mouth, throat, and stomach, for the 
production of which action it is actually added 
systematically, that 1t may give the peculiar sharp- 
ness called “ biting the palate.” 

Alum is a powerful astringent, producing con- 
stipation, and sustaining a persistent dyspepsia so 
long as it is being swallowed. Nitric acid is an 
astringent, exerting also a physiological action on 
the liver. Sulphuric acid is an astringent; and 
butyric acid, as I found in an original research 
which I once conducted with it, causes a congested 
or inflammatory condition of the whole track of 
the mucous membrane. 

Thus each one of these agents added to the al- 
coholic drinks increases the evils that are likely to 
arise from the alcohol itself. Let us admit that 
the added evils are small, nay, I had nearly said, 
infinitesimal, when considered by the measure- 
ment of one administration. But who can mea- 
sure by that standard? When once the taste for 
any of these unnatural substances is acquired it 
grows by what it feeds on, and that which was 
infinitesimal at the beginning becomes after long 
continuance a serious charge for the body to bear 
daily. 

The spirit in common use that 1s most subject 
to the chemicals I have named is gin. Gin has to 
be made cordial, to be sweetened, to be rendered 
creamy and smooth, to be flavored, to be made 
biting to the palate, to be beaded, and what not 
else. To be made ‘‘cordial”’ it must be charged 
with oil of juniper, with cssence of angelica, with % 


Spirits. 135 


oil of bitter almonds, with oil of coriander, and 
with oil of carraway. To swecten it, it must be 
treated with oil of vitriol, oil of almonds, oil of 
juniper, spirits of wine and loaf sugar; to “force 
down” the same it must be further treated with a 
solution of alum and carbonate of potassa. To be 
rendered creamy and smooth, it fiat be sweeten- 
ed with sugar, and lightly charged with a small 
quantity of garlic, Canadian balsam, or Strasburg 
turpentine. To give it piquancy, it must have had 
digested in it shreds of horse-radish. To be made 
biting to the palate, it must receive that touch of 
caustic potash of which I have spoken. 

As you see the habituated gin-drinker partaking 
of his favorite drink you observe, often, that he 
enjoys it the more if it be what he calls “ pearly,” 
or “beaded.” He holds up the precious liquid in 
his glass, and as he sees the oily fluid roil down the 
side, as beads, leaving each a creamy train behind 
it; "he rejoices in his treasure, It is erénte de la 
créme of gin. Those wicked, pearly drops are, to 
his flushed eyes, the proofs of the purity and ex- 
cellence of what he would probably tell you was, 
without mistake, the genuine article. The genu- 
ineness consists in thie fact that our enthusiastic 
friend’s gin has been beaded by the addition of the 
following artistic mixture:—An ounce of oil of 
sweet almonds has been added to an ounce of oil 
of vitriol. These have been rubbed together in a 
mortar with two ounces of loaf sugar until a paste 
has been formed. The paste has next been dis- 
solved in spirit of wine until a thin liquid has been 
- produced; and this, added to one hundred gallons 


136 On Alcohol. * 


of gin, has given the fine pearly bead that is so 
much admired. 

Redding, in his history and description of mod- 
ern wines, narrated in his day the many receipts 
that were openly published in the then existing 
publicans’ guides and licensed victuallers’ directo- 
ries for the artificial manufacturing of wines, and 
for modifying spirituous liquors. I have gone for 
my information to a similar work of the present 
day, “The New Mixing and Reducing Book,” 
which is, | understand, one of the handbooks of the 
retailer, the same to him as the pharmacopceia is 
to the druggist, and to be followed in all the varied 
arts as implicitly. I cannot leave this book with- 
out reading from it a quotation that bears directly 
on the health of the poorer classes, who indulge in 
gin. 

‘Gin, it may be observed, is of all the spirits 
ordinarily kept by a publican the one which, when 
cleverly managed, yields him the greatest and se- 
curest profit. The reason of this is that there is 
hardly any definite selling strength for gin, espe- 
cially if it be sweetened. Within very wide limits 
no complaint is made by customers on the score 
of weakness, provided only the gin is creamy, pal- 
atable, and sharp tasted. But the slightest taint, 
or the slightest fault of color, or a sensible differ- 
ence in the usual flavor, will lead to dissatisfaction 
and loss of custom. Strong or unsweetened gin is 
in comparatively little request, and then with few 
exceptions only amongst the respectable or monied 
classes. At least three-fourths of the spirits sold 
over the counter of a public house consists of a™ 


The Mixture called Gin. ep 


sweetened or made-up gin; and as the sugar 
preatly alters the character of the liquor and 
deadens the original strength, it is possible for the 
retailer to consult his own intcrests by a lberal 
addition of water without in any degree exciting 
the disapprobation, or injuring the health of those 
who patronise his establishment. 

“Asa tolerably safe general rule there will be 
no occasion to fear dissatisfaction when sweetened 
gin is not brought below 35 or even 40 per cent. 
Mere it to taxon nearly five times as strong as old 
ale. Much more is thought of a pleasant warming 
aromatic taste or smack than of simple Ue aes 
strength. But as the most careful man may some- 
times overshoot the mark in reducing, it is advisa- 
ble to know how to restore the requisite degree of 
pungency and sharpness, without having recourse 
to the use of so expensive an agent as spirit of 
Wine. Supposing, then, that by accident the 
strength of a parcel of gin has been lowered rather 
too far, a good and cheap remedy is the following: 
—-For 100 gallons, 1 ounce of cassia, 14 ounce of 
chilies. Steep fora week in a pint of spirit of wine; 
then mix well with the gin.” 

The other spirituous liquors, rum, whisky, and 
brandy, are less falsified than gin. Rum is occa- 
sionally adulterated with an essential oil like butyrin 
and with butyric acid, these two substances being 
present in some natural rum, to which they give a 
special flavor. Whisky is moaised by blending, 
as to communicate qualities of smoothness i 
softness. The yellowish color given to whisky is 
‘oduced by pouring the spirit into sherry casks, 


S< 


,. p! 


138 On Alcohol. 


or by stirring it up with the lees of wine. These 
refined whiskies are prepared for the rich and 
sumptuous ; the poor, it is recommended, should 
be treated with the spirit they understand best; a 
sharp and potent drink, that will bring the tears 
into the eyes, and make the throat smart as it goes 
down. 

Brandy, except when treated with fusel oil, is 
not, I believe, adulterated with any injurious com- 
pound. But it carries with it naturally a peculiar 
ether, which gives to it a specialodor. This ether 
is very heavy when compared with ethylic ether. 
Its specific gravity is 862, taking water at 1,000, and 
its boiling point is 479° on I'ahrenheit’s scale. Itis 
ali but insoluble in water, to which, however, it 
communicates its peculiar odor. It exerts on the 
body an injurious influence; it causes nausea, thirst, 
and pain in the stomach. It seems also to arrest 
the due secretion of bile. | 


SECONDARY PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTION OF SIMPLE 
ALCOHOL. 


I leave now the consideration of the evils arising 
from the action of the different extraneous sub- 
stances that are present in alcoholic drinks to re- 
sume the study of the action of cthylic alcohol it- 
self when it is free of any such combinations. I 
have to consider under this head the cfiect of the 
consumption of alcohol in its slow and progressive 
course, in what may be called its secondary mani- 
festations of effect upon those who for long periods 
of their ives submit themselves to its influence. ~ 


a 


Secondary Phystological Action of Alcohol. 139 


I have shown that in the course of acute intoxi- 
cation from this spirit there are four degrees or 
stages, each degree marked by different series of 
phenomena. In the secondary, or, technically 
speaking, chronic intoxication, from the same 
agent, there are in hke manner four distinct de- 
grees, each presenting distinct phenomena. A mi- 
nority of persons who habitually take alcohol 
escape with impunity from injury. Some of these 
escape because they only subject themselves to it 
on a scale so moderate they can scarcely be said to 
be under its spell. if they take it regularly they 
never exceed an ounce to an ounce and a half of 
the pure spir-t in the day; and if they indulge ina 
little more than this, itis only at recreative seasons, 
after which they atone for what they have done by 
a temporary total abstinence. Others take more 
freely than the above, but escape because they are 
physiologically constituted in such manner that 
they can rapidly eliminate the fluid from their 
bodies. These, if they are moderately prudent, 
may even go so faras to indulge in alcohol and yet 
suffer no material harm. But they are a limited 
few, if the term may be apphed to them, who are 
thus privileged. The large majority of those who 
drink alcohol in any of its disguises are injured by 
it. Asa cause of disease it gives. origin to great 
populations of afflicted persons, many of whom 
suffer even to death without suspecting from what 
they suffer, and unsuspected. Some of these live 
just short of the first stage of natural old age; 
others to ripe middle age ; others only to ripe ado- 
lescence. 


140 On Alcohol. 


DETERIORATION OF THE BODY UNDER THE FIRST 
DEGREE. 


y 


The first degree of the secondary action of alco- 
hol is evidenced in those who by constant habit 
imbibe an alcoholic stimulant to the simple extent 
of producing arterial relaxation, and of setting the 
heart at liberty to perform an increased series of 
motive contractions. They do not, as a rule, re- 
ceive what is commonly called an excess of any al- 
coholic drink, but they become trained to a sensa- 
tion of want for it and to an appetite which, while 
all seems to go well, they have no desire to resist, 
though they may keep it within what they conceive 
arc its due Jim:ts. Such persons confine their liba- 
tions to four or six ounces of alcohol per day, a 
couple of glasses of sherry or of ale at luncheon, 
three or four glasses of wine at dinner, one or two 
at dessert, and a mixture of spirit and water before 
going to bed. Such isa common and a “ tempe- 
rate day,” but reckoned up it means at least from 
four to six ounces of alcohol. The primary effect 
of such a quantity we know. Continued daily it 
induces a new physiological and altogether unnat- 
ural condition, in which the sense of acquired ne- 
cessity enforces desire, until at last the spirit is 
made to became a positive requirement of the or- 
ganic and the mental life. [very extra effort must 
be preceded by the resort to the stimulant. Every 
prolonged weariness must be relieved by the same 
measure; but when the effect of the stimulant has 
speedily subsided, there is left a greater exhaustion 
than before. Another resource to the artificial aid_ 


Detertoration of the Body. 141 


completes the exhaustion, and makes it pass into 
dulness and drowsiness without natural and sound 
sleep, and with an unbearable sense of after pros- 
tration. 

For many years, in the young and adolescent, 
this alcoholic life may be carried on without any 
evidence being rendered of the progress of physi- 
cal deterioration. In the young the processes of 
assimilation, of secretion, and of excretion, are in 
their full activity, and the poisonous agent with 
which the blood and tissues are saturated is dis- 
posed of so readily and promptly, it does not stay 
long enough in contact with these parts to vitiate 
them. This is a very homely way of putting the 
fact, but it is scientifically true. The young, there- 
fore, seem to escape, and I believe that up to the 
close of the first term of the natural life, that is to 
say, to the close of that period of full growth and 
development which extends to thirty years, they 
sometimes escape so successfully that if they could 
but stop in their course at that point they might 
go through the remaining terms of existence with- 
out any further important modification of function. 

Unfortunately, it is the rarest of events that a 
person artificially stimulated by alcohol, to the 
period named, gives up the practice. The ma- 
jority are utterly ignorant of the dangers that are 
ahead, and the sense of support to which they 
have been educated by the practice leads them on 
to pursue it with even a greater reliance upon it 
than before, and with a feeling of more urgent de- 
mand. Ina word, the sensation that they cannot 
do without it, the sensation of lowness and depres- 


142 On Alcohol. 


sion when it is by any accident withheld, and the 
contrast of lightness and activity when it is re- 
gained, are so powerful, in their influences upon 
the mind, there is no resisting the bclief of the 
absolute necessity. 

But when the body is fully developed; when the 
extra vital capacity which attended youth is ex- 

ended in growth and development; when all the 
organs have assumed their full size and activity ; 
when the balance of secretion is so nicely set in 
all parts that not one secretion can be disturbed 
without a disturbance of the whole; when the 
spring of the elastic tissues is reduced; when the 
lungs cannot fail ever so little in their function of 
throwing off the gaseous products of combustion 
without a vicarious extrusion of gases into the 
alimentary canal; when the completed organic 
moving parts become encumbered with fatty mat- 
ter interposed between them, or laid out around 
them; then the effect of alcoholic spirits begins to 
be realised. The fluid is now retained longer in 
the living house; is decomposed less quickly; is 
thrown out by primary or secondary elimination 
less speedily. 

The action of alcohol under these new condi- 
tions, so favorable in every sense to the series of 
changes it is capable of effecting, is twofold. The 
action in the first place is purely mechanical. We 
are aware that it leads to temporary paralysis of 
the vessels of the minute circulation, and that upon 
this the heart responds with a quicker propelling 
stroke. Thus the vessels throughout the whcle of 


the body are dilated, and are held in a stute of uns 


Deterioration of the Body. 143 


natural relaxation and unnatural tension. Under 
this persistent pressure their diameters change in 
course of time, and the whole of the marvellous 
webwork of blood, upon which the organs of the 
body are constructed, is deranged, in its mechan- 
ical distribution, over its extended surface. Dur- 
ing this time, too, the function of the heart be- 
comes perverted. The heart is truly an automatic 
organ, but it is still an organ which feels none the 
less severely the effect of the stimulus. If it make 
to-day an unnatural number of one hundred and 
twenty-five thousand strokes, it cannot to-morrow 
sink back, from absence of its stimulus, to the nor- 
mal one hundred thousand without evidencing 
some disturbance of action, some feebleness, some 
hesitation, or some palpitation. In fact, as it is an 
organ which by its own stroke feeds its own struc- 
ture with blood, it is the first to suffer from irre- 
gular supphes of blood. Thus, under alcohol, the 
nutrition of the heart is mechanically modified. 
Whipped into undue work, it becomes like the 
muscles of the blacksmith’s arm or the opera- 
dancer’s leg, of undue size and power; and in pro- 
portion as this evil increases, the necessity for the 
stimulus it calls for grows more urgent. 

In turn this cxtreme power and force of the 
heart tells upon the vessels that are fed by its 
impulsive stroke, and so all the organs that are 
constructed upon those vessels appreciate with ab- 
normal sensitiveness the whip of the stimulus, and 
the languor when the whip is withheld. 

_ Of itself this extreme sensitiveness of the heart 
is sufficiently momentous, but the ultimate results 


144 On Alcohol. 


upon the body at large are perhaps more impor- 
tant than the pure local change that is instituted 
in that perfect and claborate pulsating mechanism. 
The heart not only becomes enlarged, but its vari- 
ous valvular and other mechanical parts, subjected 
to prolonged strain, are thrown out of proportion. 
The orifices in it, through which the great floods 
of blocd issue in their courses, are dilated. The 
exquisite valves become stretched, and prevented 
from assuming their refined adaptations. The mi- 
nute filamentous cords which hold the valves in 
due position and tension are clongated, and the 
walls of the ventricles or forcing-chambers are 
thickened, or as we say, technically, are hypertro- 
phied. Throughout the whole of its structures 
the central throbbing organ is modified both in its 
mechanism and in its action. 

But such central modification cannot posstbly go 
on tong without the institution of other changes at 
the opposite extremity or circumference of the cir- 
cuit of the blood. At one moment the vital organs 
feel the pressure of the too powerful stroke of 
blood ; at another moment they are suddenly aware 
of an enfeebled stroke. The brain is, for the in- 
stant, conscious of a flicker of power: it is like 
the faintest flicker of gas, which is observed 
when, by an accident, the pressure is disturbed at 
the main, but it is there, and the person who ex- 
periences it is cognisant of its central origin. So 
matters progress often for months, or for years, 
without further evidence of subjective or objective 
sign of increasing evil. The worst evidence that 
exists is, probably, the necessity fora more trequent 


Deterioration of the Bedy. 145 


repetition of the stimulus under. additional stress 
of work or excitement. 

While these changes in the simple mechanism 
of the circulation are in course of advancement, 
there are also in development certain other changes 
which are much more delicate and minute, yet not 
less important. These consist of direct deteriora- 
tions of structure of the organic tissues themselves. 
Weare, at the present time, only on the border-land 
of a new knowledge on this subject, and I myself 
am, in this matter, a mere outpost wandering won- 
deringly, and trying to observe what is going on, 
but as yct, though thus advanced, unprepared to 
speak with so much precision and fulness of detail 
as I would desire. The following explanation, 
simply spoken, illustrates the degenerative changes 
of organic structure from the continued use of 
alcohol. 

Alcohol produces physical deterioration by de- 
stroying the integrity of the colloidal matter of 
which the tissues are composed. I have explained 
that all the organic parts arc constructed out of 
colloidal substance; that every such part, includ- 
ing the blood-vessels, to their minutest ramufica- 
tions, 15 composed of this colloid material arranged 
in different forms and plans to suit the design of 
the part, whether it be a tube, like an artery, a 
bundle of cross-cut fibres like a muscle, or a re- 
fracting globe like the crystalline lens of the eye- 
ball. That these parts should be kept in their 
integrity, in the midst of their diversity, the ulti- 
rate structure of which they are composed must 
be held in proper measure of construction with 


140 Ox Alcohol. 


water. Disturb the relationship that should exist 
between the colloid and its combining water, and 
the character of the colloid is at once changed. 
Take, for example, some colJoidal albumen in the 
fluid state. Pourahttle of it on to a glass plate as 
a thin watery film. Then spread over it a little 
finely powdered caustic soda, by which to remove 
and fix some of the water which previously held it 
as aliquid. The thin lquid is transformed into a 
transparent membrane which possesses elasticity. 
Into a porcelain cup pour a smail quantity of the 
same solution, and then drop into the solutiona 
bead of soda; soon you can lift the solution from 
the cup in a solid mass, shaped like a concavo-con- 
vex transparent lens. I could multiply these facts 
indefinitely, but | am anxious to indicate only one 
particular fact, viz., that alcohol and its derivative 
aldehyde possess also, by their affinity for water, 
the property of destroying the integrity of the 
colloidal form of matter. Thus they solidify, or 
render pectous the colloidal structures. Take a 
solution of albumen and add to it alcohol. The 
albumen is rendered thick or pectous. Take a so- 
lution of caseine; add to it aldehyde; the caseine 
is rendered thick or pectous. 

Animal tissues subjected to alcohol can be per- 
verted to any degree, and in the most diverse and 
apparently contradictory ways. I can hold blood 
permanently fluid with alcohol; I can solidify it 
with the same agent. I can reduce the size and 
modify the shape of the blood corpuscles, and I 
can so modify those fine and delicate animal mem- 
branes which dialyse or allow to pass through them 


Deterioration of the Body. 147 


the saline matter of the blood and secretions, that 
the process of dialysis shall be impeded, and that 
which should pass through shall be left in combi- 
nation with the membrane. I can destroy the 
elasticity of the blood-vessels in the same way, for 
that depends upon the presence in them of a gelat- 
inous colloid elasticity also called elasticin. 

When, therefore, alcohol holds long-continued 
contact with the perfectly developed colloidal 
tissues, its action upon them to produce physical 
deterioration is simply inevitable, and from this 
cause arise those fatal lesions of local organs which 
mark the different phases and stages of alcoholic 
disease. The commencement of the change some- 
times shows itself visibly on the surface of the body. 
The vessels of the face become permanently en- 
larged and suffused with blood, In cold weather, 
the blood circulating imperfectly through these 
vessels, and, not fully aérated, gives to the skin that 
dull leaden hue which is so characteristically sig- 
nificant of prolonged indulgence. In hot weather, 
thé blood circulating more freely and purcly, gives 
to the skin a red hue and often a deep red _ blotch, 
which is hardly less demonstrative. 

In this stage of alcoholic disease eruptions upon 
the skin occur to declare the injurious action cf 
the spirit upon the colloidal gelatinous textures. 
The epidermis or scarf-skin is impertectly thrown 
off; it dies upon the surface, but owing to defi- 
cient vascular and nervous tone bencath, it is not 
replaced so quickly as is natural. Thus the dead 
débris, in form of scale and sometimes with fluid 
beneath, accumulates; the superficial nervous sur- 


148 On Alcohol, 


face which should be protected by the newly 
formed epidermis is cxposed, and irritation and 
pain llc as a consequence. 

The evils, in the shghter stages of alcoholic dis- 
case, are oiten ecriieereel with others, which are 
ae 1aps passing, but whic give rise to very un- 
picasant phenomena. There is what is called a 
dyspepsia or indigestion, to relicve which th 
sufferer too frequently resorts to the actual cause 
of it as the cure for it. There is thirst; theres 
uneasiness of the stomach, flatulency, and a set of 
so-called nervous phenomena, which keep the mind 
irritable, and make trifling carcs and anxietics as- 
sume an exaggerated and unnatural character. 
From the a ie st period in the history of the 
drinking of alcohol these phenomena have been 
observed. ‘“ Who,” says Solomon, referring to 
this action, “Who hath woe? Who hath conten- 
tions? Who hath babbling? Who hath wounds 
without causc? Who hath redness of the eyes?” 

What modern physiologist could define better 
the steady and progressive effect of alcohol upon 
those who, even under the guise of temperate 
men, trust to it as a support? And yet these evils 
are minor compared with certain | have to bring 
forward in the next and concluding lecture. 


LECTURE VI. ; 


PHYSICAL DETERIORATIONS FROM ALCOHOL (con- 
tinued). INFLUENCE OF ALCOHOL ON THE VITAL 
ORGANS.—MENTAL PHENOMENA INDUCED BY ITS 
USE.—SUMMARY. 





TOWARDS the close of my last lecture I touched 
on the effects of the continued action of alcohol 
upon the colloidal structures of the body, indi- 
cating that it is impossible for these structures to 
escape detcrioration. I must dwell for a few mo- 
ments longer on this subject. 

The parts which first suffer most from alcohol 
are those expansions in the animal body which the 
anatomists call the membranes. The membranes 
are colloidal structures, and every organ is envel- 
oped in them. The skin is a membranous en- 
velope. Through the whole of the alimentary 
surface, from the lips downwards, and through the 
bronchial passages to their minutest ramifications, 
extends the mucous membrane. The lungs, the 
heart, the liver, the kidneys are folded in delicate 
membranes which can be stripped casily from 
these parts. If you take a portion of bone, you 
will find it casy to strip off from it a membranous 
sheath or covering; if you open and examine a 
joint you will find both the head and the socket 
lined with membrane. 

149 


150 On Alcohol. 


The whole of the intestines are enveloped in 
fine membrane called ferztoncum. All the muscles 
are enveloped in membranes, and the fasciculi or 
bundles and fibres of muscles have their membra- 
nous sheathing. The brain and spinal cord are 
enveloped in three membranes; one nearest to 
themselves, a pure vascular structure, a net-work 
of blood-vessels; another, a thin serous structure; 
a third, a strong fibrous structure. The eyeball is 
a structure of colloidal humors and membranes, 
and of nothing else. To complete the description, 
the minute structures of the vital organs are en- 
rolled in membranous matter. 

It was held by the old anatomists that this mem- 
branous arrangement of the body is mainly me- 
chanical. The parts and organs, according to their 
view, are supported and held in position by these 
membranous sheaths and pouches and coverings. 
Doubtless this 1s a portion of their usefulness, for 
in fact they do hold all the structures together in 
the most perfect order. But this is only a small 
part of their duties. The membranes are the 
filters of the body. In their absence there could 
be no building of structure, no solidification of 
tissue, no organic mechanism. Passive them- 
selves, they nevertheless separate all structures 
into their respective positions and adaptations. 

The animal receives from the vegetable world 
and from the earth the food and drink it requires 
for its sustenance and motion. It receives colloidal 
food for its muscles; combustible food for its mo- 
tion; water for the solution of its various parts; 
salt for constructive and other physical purposes. 


The Animal Membranes. not 


These have all to be arranged in the body ; and they 
are arranged by means of the membranous envel- 
opes. Through these membranes nothing can pass 
that is not for the time in a state of aqueous solu- 
tion like water or soluble salts. Water passes freely 
through them, salts pass freely through them, but 
the constructive matter of the active parts that is 
colloidal does not pass; it is retained in them until it 
is chemically decomposed into the soluble type of 
matter. When we take for our food a portion of 
animal flesh, it is first resolved, in digestion, into a 
soluble fluid before it can be absorbed ; in the blood 
it is resolved into the fluid colloidal condition; in 
the solids it is laid down within the membranes 
into new structure, and when it has played its part 
it is digested again, if I may so say, into a crystal- 
loidal soluble substance ready to be carried away 
and replaced by addition of new matter, then it is 
dialysed or passed through the membranes into 
the blood, and is disposed of in the excretions. 

See then what an all-important part these mem- 
branous structures play in the animal life. Upon 
their integrity all the silent work of the building 
up of the body depends. If these membranes are 
rendered too porous, and let out the colloidal fluids 
of the blood—the albumen for example—the body 
so circumstanced dics; dies as if it were slowly 
bled to death. If, on the contrary, they become 
condensed or thickened, or loaded with foreign 
material, then they fail to allow the natural fluids 
to pass through them. They fail to dialyse, and 
the result is, either an accumulation of the fluid in 
a closed cavity, or contraction of the substance 


152 On Alcohol. 


enclosed within the, membrane, or dryness of mem- 
brane in surfaces that ought to betireely lubricated 
and kept apart. In old age we see the effects of 
modification of membrane naturally induced; we 
see the fixed joint, the shrunken and feeble muscle, 
the dimmed eye, the deaf ear, the enfeebled nervous 
function. 

It may possibly seem at first sight that I am 
leading immediately away from the subject of the 
secondary action of alcohol. It is not so. J am 
leading directly to it. Upon all these membranous 
structures alcohol exerts a direct perversion of 
action. It produces in thema thickening, a shrink- 
ing, and an inactivity that reduces their functional 
power. That they may work rapidly and equally 
they require to be at all times charged with water to 
saturation. If into contact with them any agent 
is brought that deprives them of water, then is their 
work interfered with; they cease to separate the 
salane constituents properly, and, if the evil that is 
thus started be allowed to continue, they contract 
upon their contained matter in whatever organ it 
may be situated, and condense it. 

In brief, under the prolonged influence of alco- 
hol those changes which take place from it in the 
blood corpuscles, and which have already been 
described, extend to the other organic parts, in- 
volving them in structural deteriorations, which 
are always dangerous, and are often ultimately 
fatal. 


PRIMARY EFFECTS ON VITAL FUNCTIONS. 


I remarked in my last lecture that the slow or 


o 


Liffects on Vital Functions. 153 


chronic effect of-alcoholic drink upon. the body 
was to induce a series of stages analogous in all 
respects, except in period of duration, to the process 
of acute poisoning by the same agent. In the first 
prolonged stage there occur phenomena of disease 
which are as characteristic of the agency, when it 
is known, as they are deceptive when the agency 
is not known. 

The ultimate changes that follow the use of alco- 
hol by those who indulge in it, in what is too often 
considered a temperate degree, are actual local 
changes within one or other of the vital organs. 
But before such actual deterioration obtains there 
are usually other phenomena transitory in character 
yet unequivocal. I pointed out certain of these in 
the last lecture, but | did not specify them all. 

In addition to that irritation of mind and suffer- 
ing “of wounds without cause,” to which I then 
drew attention, an extreme cmotional derangement 
is often produced. The afilicted man—and I fear 
I must say woman also, for women are sometimes 
afflicted—the afflicted man under this primary 
prolonged influence cf alcohol becomes nervous 
and excitable, ready at any moment to cry or to 
laugh, without valid reasons for cither act. The 
emotional centres are alternately raised and de- 
pressed in function by the poison, but after a time 
the depression overcomes the exhilaration, and the 
impulse is to a maudlin sentimentality extending 
even to tears. The slightest anxicties arc then ex- 
arecrated, and there is experienced at the same 
time an indecision and deficiency of self-confidence 
which is doubly perplexing. When an act is done, 





a 


154 2 Alcohol. 


when a letter, for instance, or other piece of business 
has been finished and despatched, an uneasy feeling 
of distrust is felt that perhaps some mistake has 
been made, which distrust passes rapidly into a 
sentiment that the thing cannot be helped; it is 
bad luck, but 1t must take its chance. In various 
other directions this distrust shows itself, and the 
worst of all is, that the very doubt prompts the 
desire for another application for relief to the evil 
that is the cause of the burthen. A small dram 
more of the stimulant, not an overpowering draught 
that will cause quick and sure insensibility, but just 
a mouthful, that is the assumed remedy, and that 
is the certain promoter of the sorrow. 

We know now, as surely as if we could see with- 
in the body, what is the condition of the organs of 
the person afflicted in the manner thus defined. 
We are conscious that the vessels of the brain, of 
the lungs, of the liver, of the kidneys, of the stomach 
are paralysed, and are injected to full distention 
with blood. Some of these parts have actually 
been seen under this state, and the fact of the red 
injected condition directly demonstrated. 


Alcoholic Dyspepsia. 

Of all the systems of organs that suffer under 
this sustained excitement and paralysis, two are 
injured most determinately, viz., the digestive and 
the nervous. The stomach, unable to produce in 
proper quantity the natural digestive fluid, and 
also unable to absorb the food which it may im- 
perfectly digest, is in constant anxiety and irrita- 
tion. It is oppressed with the sense of nausea; it 


Nervous Derangements. 155 


is oppressed with the sense of emptiness and pros- 
tration ; it is oppressed with a sense of distention ; 
it is oppressed with a loathing for food, and it 1s 
teased with a craving for more drink. Thus there 
is engendered a permanent disorder which, for 
politeness’ sake, is called dyspepsia, and for which 
different remedies are often sought but never found. 
Antibilious pills—whatever they may mean—Seid- 
litz powders, effervescing waters, and all that phar- 
macopeoeia of aids to further indigestion, in which 
the afflicted who nurse their own diseases so liber- 
ally and innocently indulge, are tried in vain. Ido 
not strain a syllable when I state that the worst 
forms of confirmed indigestion originate in the 
practice that is here explained. By this practice 
all the functions are vitiated, the skin at one mo- 
ment is flushed and perspiring, at the next is pale, 
cold, and clammy, and every other secreting struc- 
ture is equally disarranged. | 


Nervous Derangements. 


The nervous structures follow, or it may be pre- 
cede, the stomach in the order of derangement. 
We have not yet traced out with sufficient care 
the conditions of the centres of the organic chain 
of nerves, but we know that they are reduced in 
power ; and, in regard to those higher and reason- 
ing centres, the brain and its subsidiary parts, the 
spinal cord and voluntary nerves, we are aware 
that they are supplied with blood through vessels 
weakened, and in a condition either of undue ten- 
sion or undue relaxation. Moreover, the delicate 
membranes which envelope and immediately sur- 


room On Alcohol. 


round the nervous cords are acted upon more 
readily by the alcohol than the coarser membra- 
nous textures of other parts, and thus a combined 
arrangement of evils affects the nervous matter. 
The perverted condition of the nervous centres 
gives rise to many striking phenomena, extending 
from them to the nervous cords and to the organs 
of sense. The irregular supply of blood to the - 
retina causes temporary disturbances of vision, 
with appearances before the eyes oi those specks 
and small rounded semi-transparent discs, which 
are called by the learned smusce@ volitantes. From 
the imperfect tension of the arteries, the blood 
which rushes through them causes their dilatation, 
and in the bony canals of the skull an impingement 
is made upon the bony structure. Vibrations 
which extend to the neighboring organs of hear- 
ing are thus produced, giving rise to sounds ofa 
murmuring, ringing, or humming character, ac- 
cording to the modification of the arterial ten- 
sion. 

The perverted condition of the membranous 
covering of the nerves gives rise to pressure within 
the sheath of the nerve, and to pain as a conse- 
quence. To the pain thus excited the term neu- 
ralgia is commonly applied, or tic; or if the large 
nerve running down the thigh be the seat of the 
pain, “sciatica.” Sometimes this pain is devel- 
oped as a tooth-ache. It is pain commencing in 
nearly every instance at some point where a nerve 
is enclosed in a bony cavity, or where pressure is 
easily excited, as at the lower jawbone near the 
centre of the chin, or at the opening in front of 


Alcoholic Insomnia or Sleeplessness. 157 


the lower part of the ear, or at the opening over 
the eyeball in the frontal bone. 


Alcoholic Insomnia or Sleeplessness. 


Lastly on this head, the perverted state of the 
vessels of the brain itself, the unnatural tension to 
which they are subjected from the stroke of the 
heart they are now so incompetent to resist, sets 
up in the end one telling, and of all I have yet 
named, most serious phenomenon ; I mean zxzsomnia 
—inability to partake of natural sleep. There isa 
theory held by some physiologists that sleep is in- 
duced by the natural contraction of the minute 
vessels of the brain, and by the extrusion, through 
that contraction, of the blood from the brain. I 
am myself inclined, for reasons I need not wait 
to specify now, to consider this theory incorrect ; 
but it is nevertheless true that during natural sleep 
the brain is receiving a reduced supply of blood; 
that when the vessels are filled with blood without 
extreme distention, the brain remains awake, and 
that when the vessels are engorged and over- 
distended, there is induced an insensibility which 
is not natural sleep, but which partakes of the 
nature of apoplexy. This sleep is attended with 
long and embarrassed breathing, blowing expira- 
tions, deep snoring inspirations, and uneasy move- 
ments of the body, even with convulsive motions. 
From such sleep the apparent sleeper awakes un- 
refreshed and unready for the labors of the day. 
The effect of alcohol then on the brain is to main- 
tain the relaxation of vessels, to keep the brain 


158 On Alcohol. 


charged with blood, and so to hold back the natu- 
ral repose. Under this form of divergence from 
the natural life, the sleepless man hes struggling 
with unruly and unconnected trains of thought. 
He tries to force sleep by suppressing with a great 
efiort all thought, but in an instant wakes again. 
At last the more he tries the less he succeeds, until 
the morning dawns. By that long time the spirit 
that kept his cerebral vessels disabled and _ his 
heart in wild unrest having become eliminated, he 
is set free, and the coveted sleep follows. Or per- 
haps, wearied of waiting for the normal results, he 
rises, and with an additional dose of the great dis- 
turber, or with some other tempting narcotic drug 
of kindred nature, such as chloral, he so intensifies 
the vascular paralysis as to plunge himself into the 
oblivion of congestion, with those attendant apo- 
plectic phenomena, which he himself hears not, 
but which, to those who do hear, are alarming 
in what they forebode, when their full meaning is 
appreciated. Connected with this sleep there is 
engendered in some persons a form of true epi- 
lepsy, which all the skill of physic is hopeless to 
cure, until the cause is revealed and removed. 
And now I think I have said everything that I 
have time to say respecting the general phe- 
nomena incident to this primary stage of slow 
alcoholic intoxication in those who, in the world’s 
eye, as well as in their own, are temperate indi- 
viduals—individuals who enjoy the choice things 
of this life heartily; who understand a glass of 
wine, and who can take a good many glasses—or 
a good many little goes” of spirit if that be all 


Organic Deteriorations. 159 


—but who are never known by friend or foe to 
be worse for anything they take; who grow mel- 
low as an apple under the mellowing cheer, but 
never fall, nor lose their power of taking less 
euarded companions safely home. 


ORGANIC DETERIORATIONS. 


The continuance of the effects of alcohol into a 
more advanced stage leads to direct disorganisation 
of vital structures. When once this stage has been 
reached not one organ of the body escapes the 
ravage. According to the build or the hereditary 
construction of the individual, however, or accord- 
ing sometimes to what may be considered as a lo- 
cal accident, some particular organ undergoes a 
change which gives a specific character to the 
whole of the phenomena that are afterwards pre- 
sented. We then say of the person in whom such 
change occurs that he is afflicted with such a par- 
ticular disease, letting the general sink into the lo- 
cal manifestation. Many purely local modifica- 
tions of structures and parts are in this manner in- 
duced in the blood, in the minute structure of the 
moving organs—the muscles, in the fixed vital or- 
gans, such as the brain, the lungs, the liver, the heart, 
the kidneys. In the blood the influence is exerted 
upon the plastic fibrine and upon the corpuscles ; 
in the brain, on the membranes at first, and after- 
wards on the nervous matter they enclose; in the 
lungs, on the elastic, spongy, connective tissue, 
which is, strictly speaking, also membranous; in 
the heart, on its muscular clements and mem- 
branes; in the liver, primarily on its membranes; 


160 On Alcohol. 


in the kidneys, on their conneciive tissues and 
membranes. 


SPECIAL STRUCTURAL DETERIORATIONS. 


The organ of the body that perhaps the most 
frequently undergoes structural changes from alco- 
hol is the “ver. The capacity of this organ for 
holding active substances in its cellular parts is one 
of its marked physiological distinctions. In in- 
stances of poisoning by arsenic, antimony, strych- 
nine, and other poisonous compounds, we turn to 
the liver, in conducting our analyses, as if it were 
the central depét of the foreign matter. It is, 
practically, the same in respect of alcohol. The 
liver of the confirmed alcoholic is probably never 
free from the influence of the poison; it is too often 
saturated with it. 

The effect of the alcohol upon the liver is upon 
the minute membranous or capsular structure of 
the organ, upon which it acts to prevent the proper 
dialysis and free secretion. The organ at first be- 
comes large from the distention of its vessels, the 
surcharge of fluid matter and the thickening of tis- 
sue. After a time there follow contraction of 
membrane, and slow shrinking of the whole mass 
of the organ inits cellular parts. Then the shrunk- 
en, hardened, roughened mass is said to be “ hob- 
nailed,’ a common but expressive term. By the 
time this change occurs, the body of him in whom 
it is developed is usually dropsical in its lower 
parts, owing to the obstruction offered to the re- 
turning blood by the veins, and his fate is sealed. 

Now and then, in the progress to this extreme 


Special Structural Deteriorations. 161 


change and deterioration of tissue, there are inter- 
mediate changes. From the blood, rendered pre- 
ternaturally fluid by the alcohol, there may tran- 
sude, through the investing membrane, plastic 
matter which may remain, interfering with natural 
function, if not creating active mischief. Again, 
under an increase of fatty substance in the body, 
the structure of the liver may be charged with 
fatty cells, and undergo what is technically desig- 
nated fatty degeneration. Itouch with the lightest 
hand upon these detcriorations, and I omit many 
others. My object is gained if I but impress you 
with the serious nature of the changes that, in this 
one organ alone, follow an excessive use of alcohol. 

In the course of the early stages of deterioration 
of function of the liver from organic change of 
structurc, another phenomenon, leading speedily 
to a fatal termination, is sometimes induced. This 
new malady is called diabetes, and consists in the 
formation in enormous quantity within the body 
of glucose or grape sugar, which substance has to 
be eliminated by dialysis, through the kidneys— 
often a fatal climination. The injury causing this 
disease through the action of alcohol may possibly 
be traced back to an influence upon the nervous 
matter; but the appearance of the phenomenon is 
coincident with the derangement of the liver, and I 
therefore refer to it in this place. 

The £zducy, in like manner with the liver, suffer 
deterioration of structure from the continued influ- 
sence of alcoholic spirit. Its minute structure under- 
goes fatty modifications; its vessels lose their due 
elasticity and power of contraction; or its mem- 


162 On Alcohol. 


branes permit to pass through them that colloidal 
part of the blood which is known as albumen. 
This last condition reached, the body loses power 
as if it were being gradually drained even of its 
blood. For this colloidal albumen is the primi- 
tively dissolved fluid out of which all the other tis- 
sues are, by dialytical processes, to be elaborated. 
In its natural destination it has to pass into and 
constitute every colloidal part. 

The /ungs do not escape the evil influence that 
follows the persistent use of alcohol. They, indeed, 
probably suffer more than we at present know from 
the acute evils imposed by this agent. The ves- 
sels of the lungs are easily relaxed by alcohol; and 
as they, of all parts, are most exposed to vicissi- 
tudes of heat and cold, they are readily congested 
when, paralysed by the spirit, they are subjected 
to the effects of a sudden fall of atmospheric tem- 
perature. Thus, the suddenly fatal congestions of 
lungs which so easily befall the confirmed alcoholic 
during severe winter seasons. 


Alcoholic Phthists ; or, The Consumption of Drunkards. 


There are yet other and more prolonged, and 
more certainly fatal mischiefs induced in the lungs 
by the persistent resort to alcohol; and to one of 
these I would direct special attention. It is that 
deterioration of lung tissue to which, in the year 
1864, I gave originally the name of alcoholic phthists, 
or the consumption of drunkards. The facts were 
elicited at first in this manner. In a public hospi- 
tal to which I acted as physician, I had brought 
before me, in the course of many years, two thou- 


Alcoholic Phthists. 163 


sand persons who were stricken with consumption. 
I gathered the history of the lives of these, and of 
the reasons why they had passed into the all but 
hopeless malady from which they suffered. In my 
analysis of these histories I found that the leading 
causes of the malady were, in the great majority 
of instances, predisposition from hereditary taint ; 
exposure to impure air; want; or certain other al- 
lied causes. But the analysis being conducted 
rigidly, I discovered that, when every individual 
instance had’ been classified as due to the causes 
stated above, there ‘remained thirty-six persons, or 
nearly two per cent., who were excluded from 
them, who appeared to suffer purely from the ef- 
fects of alcohol, and in whom the consumption had 
been brought into existence by the use of alcohol. 

The added observations of eleven years, since 
the above named fact was recorded in the Social 
Science Review, as a new fact in the history of the 
disease, have on.y served to prove, in the minds of 
other men as well as my own, the truth of the re- 
cord. 

The persons who succumb to this deterioration 
of structure induced by alcohol are not the ex- 
ceedingly young, neither are they the old. They 
are usually over twenty-eight and under fifty-five. 
The average age may be taken as forty-eight. 
They are persons of whom it is never expected 
that their death will be from consumption; and 
they are generally males. They are probably con- 
sidered very healthy ;—men who can endure any- 
thing, sit up late at night, run the extreme of 
amusements, and yet get through a large amount 


164 On Alcohol. 


of business. They sleep well, eat pretty well, and 
drink very well. They are often men of excellent 
build of body, and of active minds and _ habits. 
They are not a class of drinkers of strong drinks 
who sleep long, take little exercise, and grow 
heavy, waxy, pale— 


‘ Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o’ nights.” 


On the contrary, they take moderate rest, and see 
as much as they can. Neither im the ordinary 
sense are they drunkards: they may never have 
been intoxicated in the whole course of their lives; 
but they partake freely of any and every alcoholic 
drink that comes in their way, and they bear alco- 
hol with a tolerance that is remarkable to ob- 
servers. They are hard drinkers as distinguished 
from sots. Beer is to them as water, wine is weak; 
the only thing that upsets them is stiff grog in re- 
lays, or a mixture of spirituous drinks carried to 
the extent of what they call, in grim joke—in which 
death surely joins—* piling the agony.” 

As a rule these cannot live in what they consider 
to be comfort without a daily excess of alcohol, 
which excess must needs be renewed on emer- 
gencies, if there be greater amount of work to be 
done, less sleep to be secured, or more life to be 
lived. 

As specimens of animal build these persons are 
often models of organic symmetry and power. In 
fact they resist the enemy they court for so long a 
time because of the perfection of their organisa- 
tion. More than half of those whom I have seen 
stricken down with alcoholic phthisis have said 


Alcoholic Phthisis. 165 


that they had never had a day’s illness in their lives 
before; but questioned closely it was found that 
none of them had actually been quite well. Some 
of them had suffered from gout; others from rheu- 
matism or neuralgia. They had felt severely any 
depression such as that which arises from a cold, 
and if they had been subjected suddenly to causes 
of excitement or exhaustion, they had detected, 
without actually realising its full meaning, that 
their balance of power against weakness was re- 
duced, that the end of the beam called strength 
was rising, and that an extra quantity of alcohol 
was required to bring back equilibrium. Asa rule 
men of this class are thoughtless of their own 
health and their own prospects, for they have an 
abundant original store of energy. They are de- 
signated as “happy-go-lucky ” men, or as men who 
“always fall on their feet,” which truly they do, 
but not without injury. 

The countenance of the alcoholic consumptive 
differs from that which is usually considered the 
countenance of the consumptive person, and 
equally from that which all the world adjudges as 
belonging to the man who indulges freely in strong 
drink. Who does not remember the wan, pale, 
sunken cheek of the youth on whom ordinary con- 
sumption has set its mark? And who, again, does 
not recall the facies alcoholica—the blotched skin, 
the purple-red nose, the dull, protruding eye, the 
vacant stare of the confirmed sot? The alcoholic 
consumptive has none of these characteristics. 
His face is the best part of him in all his history. 
When his muscles have lost their power, and his 


166 On Alcohol. 


clothes hang loosely on his shrunken limbs, he is 
still of fair proportion in the face; he has little pal- 
lor, and he is expressive in feature, so that his 
friends are apt to be deceived and to believe that 
there must be hope for his recovery, even when 
he is beyond every hope. I remember being actu- 
ally taken aback on one occasion on finding, in a 
man who seemed, from his face, to be in perfect 
health, complete destruction of his lungs from the 
encroachments of disease; and I-cannot be sur- 
prised, therefore, that others, less informed, should 
share in such an imperception of danger when it 
is close at hand. Nobody, in a word, “ pities the 
looks”’ of these sufferers, and good eyes are neces- 
sary to learn that pity is called for. 

The phenomena are not always developed at a 
time when the sufferer from them is indulging 
most freely in alcohol. On the contrary, it is by no 
means uncommon that the habit of excessive indul- 
eence has been stopped for some time previously te 
their development. The reasons assigned by the 
patients for abstinence vary. One man may have 
been strongly advised by his friends to desist, or 
may himself have undergone a certairiimeasure of 
reform ; another has been led by the reading or 
hearing of arguments on temperance; a third, by 
want of means to obtain the indulgence; but by far 
the larger number tell you that a time came when 
the desire for so much drink did not occur to them. 
They will state that they tried the round of the 
various spirits, but found that none agreed with 
them as before, so that at last they were driven to 
rely on beer as the only drink they cared for. We 


Alcoholte Phihists. 167 


read all this off clearly enough from a physiologi- 
cal point of view. We see that, in fact, the body 
has been resisting the alcohol; that it could not 
do away with it as it did when all the excreting 
organs were in their full prime; and that those 
drinks only can be borne in which the amount of 
alcohol is least. But the sufferer does not com- 
prehend the fact, and therefore he not unfrequently 
concludes that his increasing languor and debility 
are due to the necessary itil awal of the stimu- 
lus on which he seems to have been actually feed- 
ing during the greater part of his life. 

The signs which first indicate failure of health 
are usually those of acute pleurisy. Therc is pain 
in the side, quick, sharp, starting. The term 
“stitch” in the side is commonly apphed to this 
pain, and is expressive enough. After a time the 
pain becomes continuous, and when it subsides, 
-suppressed breathing, or difficulty of filling the 
“chest, is at once felt and recognised. This difh- 
culty is due to the circumstance that a portion of 
lung has become adherent to the inner surface of 
the chest. The next sign indicating that the 
disease (consumption) i is present, is, usually, vomit- 
ing of blood. In two-thirds of the examples to 
which my attention has been directed this has 
been the sign that has first caused serious alarm, 
and it is commonly on such event that the physi- 
cian is called in, who examines the chest with the 
stethoscope, and finds too often a condition that. 
is hopeless. From the appearance of that sign 
all is—down, down, down towards the grave. 

There is no form of consumption so fatal as that 


168 On Alcohol. 


from alcohol. Medicines affect the disease very 
little, the most judicious diet fails, and change of 
air accomplishes but slight real good. The sick 
man with this consumption may linger longer on 
the highway to dissolution than does his younger 
companion, but there is this difference between 
them, that the younger companion may possibly 
find a by-path to comparative health, while the 
other never leaves it, but struggles ‘on straight to 
the fatal cnd. In plain terms, there is no remedy 
whatever for alcoholic phthisis. It may be de- 
layed in its course, but it is never cured, and not 
unfrequently instead of being delayed it runs on to 
a final termination more rapidly than is common 
in any other type of the disorder. 

The origin of this series of changes from alcohol 
is again pow the membranes. T he course of it is 
through the membranous tissues. The vessels 
give way after a severe congestive condition, and 
blood is exuded, or extravasated into the lung. 
These conditions lead to the destruction of the 
substance of the pulmonary organs, upon which, 
and upon the organic changes that follow such 
destruction, the acute symptoms of the malady 
under consideration, become quickly and fatally 
pronounced. 


Alcoholic Disease of the Heart 


The heart, not less than the rest of the vital: 
parts, is subjected to deterioration of structure 
from alcohol. We need not wonder at this when 
we recall the strain to which it is subjected by the 


Alcoholic Disease of the Heart. 169 


agent, the excess of work it is made to perform. 
I touched on the mechanical evils that befall the 
heart from these circumstances in my last lecture, 
and the structural evils which I have now to spe- 
cify are not less grave. The membranous struc- 
tures which envelope and line the organ are 
changed in quality, are thickened, rendered carti- 
laginous, and even calcareous or bony. Then the 
valves, which are made up of folds of membrane, 
lose their suppleness, and what is called valvular 
disease is permanently established. The coats of 
the great blood-vessel leading from the heart, the 
aorta, share, not unfrequently, in the same changes 
of structure, so that the vessel loses its clasticity 
and its power to feed the heart by the recoil from 
its distention, after the heart, by its stroke, has 
filled it with blood. 

Again, the muscular structure of the heart fails, 
owing to degenerative changes in its tissue. The 
elements of the muscular fibre are replaced by fatty 
cells; or if not so replaced are themselves trans- 
ferred into a modified muscular texture in which 
the power of contraction is greatly reduced. 

Those who suffer from these organic deteriora- 
tions of the central and governing organ of the 
circulation of the blood learn the fact so insidi- 
ously, it hardly breaks upon them until the mischief 
is far advanced. They are, for years, conscious of 
a central failure of power from slight causes, such 
as over-exertion, trouble, broken rest, or too long 
abstinence from food. They feel what they call a 
“sinking,” but they know that wine or some other 
stimulant will at once relieve the sensation. . Thus 


170 On Alcohol. 


they seck to relieve it until at last they discover that 
the remedy fails. The jaded, over-workced, faithful 
heart will bear no more; it has run its course, and, 
the governor of the blood stream broken, the cur- 
‘rent either overflows into the tissues, gradually 
damming up the courses, or under some slight 
shock or excess of motion ceases at the centre. 


Other Organic Changes. : 


In the eyeball certain colloidal changes take 
place from the influence of alcohol, the extent of — 
which have as yet been hardly thought of, cer- 
tainly not in any degree studied, as in future they 
will be. We have learned of late years that the 
crystalline lens, the great refracting medium of the 
eyeball, may, like other colloids, be rendered dense 
and opaque, by processes which disturb the rela- 
tionship of the colloidal substance and its water. 
By this means even the lens of the living eye can 
be rendered opaque, and the disease called cataract 
can be artificially produced. Sugarand many salts 
in excess, in the blood, will lead to this perversion 
of structure, and after a long time alcohol acting 
in the manner of salt 1s capable, in excess, of caus- 
ing the same modification of the eyeball. More- 
over, alcohol injures the delicate nervous expanse 
upon which the image of all objects we look at is 
first impressed. It interferes with the vascular 
supply of this surface, and it leads to changes of 
structure which are indirectly destructive to the 
perfect sense of sight. 

In yet another mode alcohol perverts the animal 


{ 


Mther Organic Changes. r71 


mechanism. By some as yet obscurely definable 
interference with the natural transmutation of the 
colloidal substances into saline cr crystalloidal, it 
gives rise to the production of an excess of some 
salines which appear in the fluid renal secretion, 
These saline matters accumulated in the blood 
from inability of the excreting organs to dispose 
of them, are directly injurious, and exist as pos- 
. sible. causes fer the promotion of cataractous 
changes in the crystalline lens and of varied 
changes in other of the colloidal tissues and mem- 
-branes. They are also the cause of a disease local 
in character produced by the aggregation of the 
saline products, particle by ieee into a com- 
pact mass like a stone, or to what is technically 
called calculus. In writing the history of one of 
the districts of ingland in which this disease is 
very prevalent, I expressed many years ago the 
view that alcoholic indulgence was one of the 
most telling agencies in the production of the ma- 
lady. Ihave seen nothing since that would lead 
me to alter that statement. 


Organic Nervous Lesions from Alcohol. 


Lastly, the brain and spinal cord, and all the 
nervous matter become, under the influence of 
alcohol, subject, like other parts, to organic deteri- 
oration. The membranes enveloping the nervous 
substance undergo thickening; the blood-vessels 
are subjected to change of structure, by which their 
resistance and resiliency is impaired; and the 
true nervous matter is sometimes modified, by soft- 


ra On Alcohol. 


ening or shrinking of its texture, by degeneration 
of its cellular structure, or by interposition of fatty 
particles. 

These deteriorations of cerebral and spinal mat- 
ter give rise to a series of derangements, which 
show themselves in the worst forms of nervous 
discase—epilepsy ; paralysis, local or general; in- 
sanity. 

But not a single serious nervous lesion from al- 
coholappears without its warning. Asaman who, 
when drinking at the table, is warned, by certain 
unmistakable indications, that the wine is begin- 
ning to take decisive effect on his power of ex- 
pression and motion, so the slow alcoholic is duly 
apprised that he is in danger of a more permanent 
derangement. He is occasionally conscious of a 
failing power of speech; in writing or speaking he 
loses common words. He is aware that after 
fatigue his limbs are urmaturally weary and heavy, 
and he is specially conscious that a sudden fall of 
temperature lowers too readily his vital energies. 
The worst sign of impending nervous change is 
muscular instability, irrespective of the will; that 
is to say, an involuntary muscular movement when- 
ever the will is off guard. This is occasionally 
evidenced by sudden muscular starts which pass 
almost like electrical shocks through the whole of 
the body ; but it is more frequently and determi- 
nately shown in persistent muscular movements 
and starts at the time of going to sleep. The voli- 
tion then is resigned to the overpowering slumber, 
and naturally all muscular movement, except the 
movement of the heart and of the breathing, should 


Tifluence on Mental Functions. re} 


rest with the will. But now this beautitul order is 
disturbed. In the motor centres of the nervous 
organisation the foreign agent is creating distur- 
bance of function. The fact is communicated to 
the muscles by the nervous fibres, and the active 
involuntary start of the lower limbs rouses the 
slecper in alarm. Ignorant of the import of these 
messages of danger, the habituated alcoholic 
continues too frequently his way, until he finds the 
agitated limbs unsteady, wanting in power of co- 
ordinated movement—paralysed. 

Deeply interesting as these phenomena from al- 
cohol are, I must leave them here, omitting many 
others equally significant and equally plain, when 
they are once pointed out, even to the unprofessional 
mind. Let it be understood that in each descrip- 
tion I have recorded only what alcohol can physi- 
cally do to the animal economy. It is not always 
the cause of all or any of these phenomena. They 
may be induced by other influences and other 
agents, but itis an agency capable of effecting them, 
and it is actively employed in the work. 


ON SOME OF THE MENTAL PHENOMENA INDUCED 
BY ALCOHOL: 


The purely physical action of alcohol has been 
so far treated upon in the preceding pages. To 
that must now be added a few sentences on the in- 
fluence this agent exerts over the mental functions. 
Of course such influence is actually manifested by 
and through physical means, but as yet these are 


174 On Alcohol. 


not. sufiiciently clear to enable us to trace out the 
mental aberration through the physical process 
that has led to it. Itis better therefore and sim- 
pler to treat the present subject in the mere ab- 
stract, passing from the agent to its results, with- 
out reference to the intermediate line of connec- 
tion between cause and effect. These mental 
phenomena in the chronic phase, correspond to the 
phenomena which belong to the second and third 
stages of acute alcoholic intoxication. 


Loss of Memory or Speech. 


One of the first effects of alcohol upon the ner- 
vous system in the way of alienation from the nat- 
ural mental state, is shown in loss of memory. 

This extends even to forgetfulness of the com- 
monest of things; to names of familiar persons, to 
dates, to duties of daily life. Strangely too, this 
failure, like that which indicates, in the aged, the 
era of second childishness and mere oblivion, does 
not extend to the things of the past, but is confined 
to events that are passing. On old memories the 
mind retains its power; on new ones it requires 
constant prompting and sustainment. 

If this failure of mental power progress, it is fol- 
lowed usually with loss of volitional power. The 
muscles remain ready to act, but the mind is inca- 
pable of stirring them into action. The speech 
fails at first, not because the mechanism of speech 
is deficient, but because the cerebral power is in- 
sufficient to call it forth to action. The man is re- 


Influence on Mental Functions. 175 


duced to the condition of the dumb animal. Aris- 
totle says, grandly, animals have a voice; mén 
speaks. In this case the voice remains, the speech 
is lost ; the man sinks to the lower spheres of the 
living creation, over which he was born to rule. 

The failure of speech indicates the descent still 
deeper to that condition of general paralysis in 
which all the higher faculties of mind and will are 
powerless, and in which nothing remains to show 
the continuance of life except the parts that remain 
under the dominion of the chain of organic or vege- 
table nervous matter. Our asylums for the insane 
are charged with these helpless specimens of hu- 
manity. The membranes of the nervous centres 
of thought and volition have lost, in these, the dia- 
lysing function. In some instances, though less 
frequently than might be supposed, the nervous 
matter itself is modified, visibly, in texture. The 
result is the complete wreck of the nervous me- 
chanism, the utter helplessness of will, the absolute 
dependence upon other hands for the very food 
that has to be borne to the mouth. The picture is 
one of breathing death; of final and perpetual dead 
intoxication. 


Dipsomanta. 


A second effect of alcohol on the mental organi- 
sation is the production of that craving for its in- 
cessant supply to which we give the name of dip- 
somania. In those who are affected with this form 
of alcoholic disease, a mixed madness and insanity 
is established, in which the cunning of the mind 


176 On Alcohol. 


alonc lives actively, with the vices that ally them- 
selves to it. The arrest of nervous function is par- 
tial, and does not extend to the motor centres so 
determinately as to those of the higher reasoning 
faculties. But the end, though it may be slow, is 
certain, and the end is, as a rule, that general pa- 
ralysis which I have just described. The dipso- 
maniac is, however, capable of recovery, within 
certain limits, on one and only one.condition, that 
the cause of his disease be totally withheld. 


Mania a Potu. 


The effect of alcohol on the mental functions is 
shown in yet another picture of modern humanity 
writhing under its use. I mean in the form of 
what may be called intermittent indulgence to 
dangerous excess. This form of disease has been 
named the mania a potu, and it is one of the most 
desperate of the alcoholic evils. The victims of this 
class are not habitual drunkards or topers, but at 
sudden intervals they madden themselves with the 
spirit; they repent ; treform; (get agnewsleasemar 
life; relapse. In intervals of repentance they are 
worn with remorse and regret; in the intervals of 
madness they are the terrible members of the com- 
munity. In their furious excitement they spread 
around their circle the darkness of desolation, fear, 
and despair. Their very footsteps carry dread to 
those who, most helpless and innocent, are under 
their fearful control. They strike their dearest 
friends; they strike themselves. MRctaining sufh- 


Manta a Potu. 177 


cient nervous power to wield their limbs, yet not 
sufficient to guide their reason, they become the 
dangerous alcoholic criminals whom our legisla- 
tors, fearing to touch the cause of their malady, 
would fain try to cure by scourge and chain. 

To us physiologists these ‘maniacs a potu”’ are 
men under the experiment of alcohol, with certain 
of their brain centres (which I could fairly define 
if the present occasion were befitting) paralysed, 
and with a broken balance, therefore, of brain 
power, which we, with infinite labor and much ex- 
actitude, have learned to understand. Our rem- 
edy for such aberration of nervous function, if we 
were legislators, would be simple enough. We 
should not whip the maniac back again to the 
drink; we should try to break up the evil by 
taking the drink from the maniac. But then we 
are only physiologists. We have nothing to do 
with that 4117,000,000 of invested capital, and we 
are not practical in reference to it. 


TRANSMITTED DISEASE. 

The most solemn fact of all bearing upon these 
mental aberrations produced by alcohol, and upon 
the physical not less than the mental, is, that the 
mischief inflicted on man by his own act and deed 
cannot fail to be transferred to those who descend 
from him, and who are thus irresponsibly afflicted. 
Amongst the many inscrutable designs of nature 
none is more manifest than this, that physical vice, 
like physical feature and physical virtue, descends 


178 | On Alcohol. 


in line. It is, I say, a solemn reflection for every 
man and every woman, that whatever we do to 
ourselves so as to modify our own physical con- 
formation and mental typé, for good or for evil, is 
transmitted to generations that have yet to be. 

Not one of the transmitted wrongs, phy ‘sical or 
mental, is more certainly passed on to those yet 
unborn than oN wrongs which are inflicted by 
alcohol. We, therefore, who live to reform the 
present age in this respect, are stretching forth 
our powers to the next; to purify it, to beautify it, 
and to Icad it toward that millennial happiness and 
blessedness, which, in the fulness of time, shall visit 
even the earth, making it, under.an increasing light 
of knowledge, a garden of human delight, a Para- 
dise regained. 


SUMMARY. => 


In summary of what has past, I may be brief- 
ness itself. 

This chemical substance, alcohol, an artificial 
product devised by man for his purposes, and in 
many things that lic outside his orguifisra a useful 
substance, is neither a food nor a drink suitable for 
his natural demands. Its application as an agent 
that shall enter the living organization is properly 
limited by the learning and abil possessed by the 
physician—a learning that itself admits of being 
recast and revised in many important details, and 
perhaps in principles. 

If this agent do really for the moment cheer the 
weary and impart a flush of transient pleasure to 


Summary. 179 


the unwearied who crave for mirth, its influence 
(doubtful even in these modest and moderate de- 
grecs) is an infinitesimal advantage, by the side of 
an infinity of evil for which there is no compensa- 
tion, and.no human cure. 

«ae 


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ARP EN: DITX. 


I. REFERENCES TO TABLES. 





TABLE I. 


NAMES OF ANCIENT ROMAN WINES. 


I 
Falernum 


Massicum 
Setinum 
Surrentinun 


2 


Chium 
Lesbium 
Leucadium 
Naxium 
Mamertinum 
Thasium 
Mcenium 
Mareoticum 


5 
Album 
Nigrum 
Rubrum 


Vetus 
Novum 
Recens 
Hornum 
Trimum 
Molle 
Lene 
Vetustate edentulum 
Asperum 
Calenum 
Coecubum 
Albanum 
Merum 
Fortius 


Coum 
Rhodium 
Myndian 
Halicarnassum 
181 


6 
Cnidum 


Adrium 


Mustum 
Protropum 
Mulsum 
Sapa 
Defrutum 
Carenum 


8 


Passum 
Passum creticum 


9 


Murrhina 


182 A ppend. 1X. 


VABLIT 


WINES OF ITALY. 
Vesuvius. 
Vino Greco 
Mangiacuerra 


Verracia 
Vino Vergine 


Tuscany. 


Florence (white and red) 
Monte Pulciano 
Montalneo 

Porte Hercole 


Lombardy. 


Modenese 
Montserrat 
Marcemino 
Brescian 
Veronese 
Placentine 
Lumelline 
Pucine 


Naples. 


Campania or Pausilippo 
Muscatel 

Surentine 

Salernitan 

Chiarello 

Carcassone 

Lachryma Christi 
Albano 

Montefiascone 


Nomentan 
Monteran 
Velitrin 
Preenetic 

Il Romanesca 
D’Orvieto 


Sicilian, Sardinian, and Cor- 
sican. 


Catanean 
Panormitan 
Messinian 
Syracusan 


Genod. 


Vino di Monte Vernaccia 
Vino Tinto 
Madeira 


WINES OF MADEIRA AND CA- 
NARIES ISLANDS. 


Madeira Sec 
Canary or Palm Sec 


WINES OF FRANCE AND 
SWITZERLAND. 


Languedoc 

Picardy 

Champagne 

Burgundy 

Vino Amabile, or Vino di 
Cinque Terre 

Vino Razzese 

Muscadine 


Appendix. 


183 


TABLE Il.—Contfnued. 


Rosatz 
Vino Piccante 


WINES OF GERMANY. 


Tyrolese Tramin 
Etsch 

Wine of Worms 
Edinghof 
Ambach 
Rhenish 
Mayne 

Moselle 
Neckar 

Elsass 

Hock 
Bohemian 
Silesian 
Thuringian 
Misnian 
Naumberg 
Brandenburg 


WINES OF AUSTRIA AND HUN- 
GARY, 

Klosterneuberg 

Brosenberg 


Edenburg 
Tokay 


WINES OF SPAIN AND POR- 


TUGAL. 

Aland 
Alicant 
Sherry (or Xeres) 
Spanish Malmsey 
Tarragan 
Salamanca 
Malaga 
Cordova 
Galicia 
Andalusia 
Vino de Toro 
Spanish 
Vin de Beaune (or Partridge 

eye) 
Cote Roti 
St. Laurence 
Frontiniac 
Muscat de Lion 
Cahors 
Hermitage ‘ 
Grave 
Vin d’Haye 
Neufchatel 
Velteline 
Lacote 
Reiff 


1384 


Appendix. 


TABLE III. 


TABLE OF THE CONTENTS OF DIFFERENT WINES IN A QUART 


























OF EACH. 

Highly aie ay x 

Rese’ | Minos feoug Blac) Wate 

oz.dr. gr.| oz. dr. an oz.dr. gr. lbs. oz. dr. gr. 
Aland 7 seme. 16 !.20|5.302~> 0) Ste o|s 2 ena 
Alicant ge, eae 3.656) 6 © 20) -0 1°40, 2. 236780 
Burgundy . . 2 -2egGmOrd.0| 0 1) 40] 2 gsomso 
Carcassone. . 2@GmeG Oud I0| 0 1 20)°2 S430 
Champagne 2 Meee on0 40}'0 T° Ol 2 (Se ateG 
French . SFOS" Omo 6X40!" 1. Ol 2 Beewro 
Frontignao%. -SHs39| %3) 01 Fal 33.4 0] 0 5 20/92 =eenGman 
Vin Grave . . 250) O10 16480) "6. 2250) 22 omega 
Hermitage. . 27.9) 129 50\. 001240] oe er eae 
Madeira’. . \. 22] 253 ROMS S20 "Ont Cm ls eres 
Malmsey . . (. | 4-0 (O0)8403) (O)7 202 ssolm eeu 
Maen ey oy 2.6 .\0| 0.3) Ol\0N2240| 92 ace omss 
Moselle . . 242.50) 0-4 20170 130) 26 qupmma 
Muscadine. . 3.0220} 2-4 40l01 (0 (0) 72) -areeee 
Neufchatel... £ 5 | 3° 2-5.0)°4 80 Sol 537 S* 012) eee 
Palmi5ce wae. 213 2O\2t4) OAc sy Oh eee 
Pontack:.. 5 .?%s4"200 “ol 0.5 20) /o7meero 2 Gageoe 
Old-Rhenish ... |.2.0 (0lel 0 (O\Sog2e2o BomaoueeaD 
Rhenish .. .-. | 2.2 0] 0°3 20) B01 34) g@oueo 
Salamanca... «193.0 0 3 4.0) 2a.) 0} 7m reetan 
elites ed 30°60} 6 0 O| 2 2 (0) a teweo 
Spanish cee. 1°2.40| 2 4 0| 9 4 Sot teeeaeo 
Vino Tinto . 3.0 0o| 6 4- 0| 1 6° oO eeoemeeg 
Tokay . . . .|2 2 0) 4 3 0] 5 0 (0) 2 etaueuee 
Tyrol Red Wine .| 14 o| 1 2 O| o 4 of(2ieBtGaro 
Red, Wine = 5] 1:6 0| 0 4 40) 07238 sz 
MRS 9 Fe 20. O|'0 7.0) 50753 76) een 





Appendrx. 185 


TABLE IV. 


LIST OF SUBSTANCES THAT WILL PRODUCE ANASTHETIC 


SLEEP. 
Nitrous oxide gas fleavy carburetled hydrogen 
Carbonic oxide gas gas (olefiant gas or ethy- 
Carbonic acid gas lene) 
Bisulphide of carbon LEthylic or absolute ether 


Light carburetted hydrogen | Chloride of ethyl 
(hydride of methyl or! Bichloride of ethylene (Dutch 


marsh gas) liquid) 
Methylic alcohol Bromide of ethyl, or hydrobro- 
Methylic ether gas mic ether 
Chloride of methyl gas Hydride of amyl 
Bichloride of methylene Amylene 
Terchloride of formyl, or chlo-| Benzol 
roform Turpentine spirit 


Tetra-chloride of carbon 


TABLE V. 
ALCOHOLS, 
Elementary Composition. 
Methylic or Protylic (wood spirit) . MO NSE, ASG. 


, H, HO 
Hao 
_H, HO 


Ethylic or Deutylic (common alcohol) AV AS, 

Propylic or ‘ixilylic C 

Butylic or Tetrylic : Cc 

Amylic or Pentylic (potato ick, fel a. CSOs (0, 

Hexylic : : : PG Bebe te tS: 

Heptylic or fenanthic ‘ : . oo. Gee Ele LO? 
C 
C 
C 
C 


a 


Octylicw: > : ; ; ° ° SRO As ode ld, 
10 Hy, HO 
16 H,, HO 
30 ie HO 


Decatylic . : . : . : 
Cetylic ° se es e e ° 
Melylic e e e e e e 


186 Appendix. 


TABLE. VI. 


RADICALS OF ALCOHOLS. 


Composition, Old name. . New name. 
Gd a bh Methyl Protylen. 
Cai Ethyl Deutylen. 
Cee we Propyl Trityléte* | 
Crisk Butyl Tetrylen. 
Cert 3 Amyl Pentylen. 
Caatis tHexyl Hexylen. 
OE be Heptyl Heptylen. 
Ex Gal Octyl Octylen. 
Cees Decatyl — 
Cane Cetyl _ ga. 

Cr tek, Melyl _ 


TABLE VII. 




















ALCOHOLS. 
Chemical Vapor oes : Bolfif 
NAME. composition. | denereye Specific Stavuy: pate 
Old. | New. | | Hy=1. | Water 1ooo. Cen,' Fah. 
Methylic |Protylic.|C H, O} 16 | 814 ato” C| 60140 
Ethylic . ‘Deutylic emi) (23.55.7027 es 78)172 


803 4a I10}230 
SUL 132/270 


Butylic . |Tetrylic.|C, H,, O| 37 
Amylic . Paeae ral ioe) |) a4 











a 





Appendix. 187 


TABLE VIII. 


Alcohols. | Aldehydes. Acids. 








Mythylic C Il, O/Formaldehyde . C HI, O/Formic .C He» Oz 
Ethylic .C: Hg Oj/Aldehyde. . . C.H,OjAcctic . Co HyO; 
Propylic C3; Hg O 'Propionaldehyde C3; Hs O Proponic. C; He O2 
Butylic , Cy Tj O'Butylaldehy de . C4 Hs O|Butyric . Cs Hs O2 


. Amylic .C; cinivaet C5 HicO | Valerianic Cs HO: 


TABLE IX. 




















ae “8 








te ETHERS. 
| 
NaME. Ws Composition, Form. | Boiling point. 
—!) ———_ oS, 
See | | 
Methyl Ether .-.|/ C, H, .O | Gas | ay 
YP el Aad ae | er i Ge) Eiud 1" o4~ Fah: 
Aster) e) id Ege d peer: oo. Dre 40 Eaten @ | (fe 153e3Kah:; 
Butyl “« . Geri =.) «| 219° Fah, 
Puy] ee | Crartin ©) | J | 348° Fah, 
: ce 
ADL AeX: 
CHLORIDES., 
. Chemical | V } : Boili 
NAME. | composition. | deci brs | Specific gravity. nea 
| 
| 


H,=1. Water 1rovo. |Cen.| Fah. 


Metis | a oe ss v) Gas siete 


Ethyl .| Deutyl. ie EL. 32 id o2t ations 7 yikes 
WietAOsst O80 / a3 70 158 


on 


Butyl quetryl a Gerd 
Amyl Pentyinqe rt elie 5354 nh 102/216 
| 








a ee een 





183 Appendix. 


TABLE XI. 

















IODIDES. 
NAME Chemical Vapor Specific Boiling | Per cent. 
e | composition. | density. gravity. point. | of lodine. 
wick fake Ae Bea ht 
Old. New. H, =1. | Water 1000. |Cen. Fah. 












































Methyl) Protyl}C H, [| 471 2240 | 421108} 89.4 
Ethyl. | Deutyl C, Heal .78 LOAD sil+ 7.2;162)~ Bia 
Butyl. Tetryl | Cri G2 1604 |120248| 69.0 
Amyl. oe Ceti : 99 1511 |146295| 64.1 
TABLE XII. 
NITRITES. © 
vom | eel. | dane, | sas | a 
Old. | New. H, =r. | Water rooo. | Cen. Fah, 
Methyl. | Protyls Ce ee) 2am ae ; 
EVs | Deutyl. Cer NO 2a 0.917 18, 64 
Biulyle | REtEV ret) Garena O2! Seal eee 64 147 
Amyl” 5) -Pentyl (Chea a 


58 0.877 Re 205 


IJ. REFERENCES TO WORDS AND DERIs 
VATIONS. 





While the delivery of these Lectures was in progress, I 
received from John F. Stanford, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., a phi- 
Jological scholar, whose dictionary of Anglicised foreign 
words and phrases will, it is to be hoped, soon appear— 
many very useful and interesting notes relating to deriva- 


Appendix. 189 


tions of words and terms respecting alcohol. By his kind 
permission I add a few of his notes in this place. 


Alcohol.—The best Arabic scholars write the word Al- 
Kool, though there is no word in Arabic which corre- 
sponds to the meaning assigned to it in the English lan- 
guage. 

Agua Vite—This word, Mr. Stanford reminds me, is 
used by Shakspeare. 


(Nurse.) ‘*Give me some aqua vite.”—Romeo and Fultet, Act. iii, 
Sc. 2. 


‘*T would as soon trust an Irishman with my aqua vite bottle.”—Merry 
Wives of Windsor. 

Aqua vitae was, Mr. Stanford believes, made before any 
other spirit, viz., about 1260 A.p., by the monks of Ireland, 
who got the secret frota Spain, the Spaniards having got it 
from the Moors, and the Moors (Arabs) from the Chinese. 
Whisky, he thinks, was possibly the oldest term applied to 
aqua vite. The etymon is usige-biatha, which in Erse 
means aqua vite, corrupted afterwards to usquebaugh. 
This compound term shared the fate of many other words, 
and was abbreviated to ws7ge, whence whisky. 


© Arrac—Hindustane for an alcohol, distilled from palm- 
tree juice and several other juices: it is the aqua vite of 
the East. The word is corrupted to Rakiin Russia, Tur- 
key, and Germany, or sometimes to Rakk. The intoxi- 
cating liquor mace from the juice of the palm-tree is called 
in India and Ceylon oddee, whence the Scotch term 
“ Toddy.” ‘There is a coarse Arrac called Pariah Arrac, 
very generally consumed throughout India, which is ren- 
dered narcotic by addition of extract of Indian hemp. The 
importation of Arrac or Rack was regulated by 11 Geo. I. 
c. 30. It was imported to make punch, so called Rack 
punch. 


Gii.—This term Mr. Stanford traces from French 


190 Appendix. 


ginévre, abbreviated from the Italian ginepro, Latin juni- 
perus, English juniper, the berries of the juniper being used 
in the distillation of the spirit as a flavoring substance. 


Gin-sing.—This is the term used by the Chinese for the 
famous Mandrake narcotic reputed to be worth its weight 
in gold for medicinal purposes, and at the head of their 
pharmacopeeia. 


Metheglin.—Was the name of a fermented honey-drink 
of Cornwall, an intoxicating narcotic beverage. 


Potheen or Poteen—Lhish, Poitin.—A small pot or still, 
the name of the liquor being derived from the still in which 
it was made. Poitin is probably from the Latin fetio, a 
drink, 

Rum.—Mr. Stanford believes the word “rum” to be an 
abbreviation, by apheeresis, of sacca-rum, not an original 
native name, 


PUBLICATIONS 


OF THE 


Nations! "[’emperance 


fAND Pu BLICATION Jiouse. 











HE Nationac TEMPERANCE Society, organized in 1866 for the purpose 

of supplying a sound and able Temperance literature, have already 
stereotyped and published three hundred and fifiy publications of 
all sorts and sizes, from the one-page tract up to the bound volume of 500 
pages. This list comprises books, tracts, and pamphlets, containing 
essays, stories, sermons, arguments, statistics, history, etc., upon every 
phase of the question. Special attention has been given to the department 


For Sunsay-School Libraries. 
Over’sixty volumes have already been issued, written by some of the best 
authors in the land. These have been carefully examined and unani- 
mously approved by the Publication Committee of the Society, represent- 
ing the various religious denominations and Temperance organizations of 
the country, which consists of the following members: 


PETER CARTER, Rev. J. B. DUNN, 

Rev. W. M. TAYLOR, Rev. A. G. LAWSON, . 
A. A. ROBBINS, Rev. ALFRED TAYLOR, 
REV. HALSEY MOORE, R. R. SINCLAIR, 

T. A. BROUWER, Rev. C. D. FOSS, y 
J. N. STEARNS, JAMES BLACK, 


Rev. WILLIAM HOWELL TAYLOR. 


These volumes have been cordially commended by leading clergymen 
of all denominations, and by various national and State bodies, all over 
the land. 

The following is the list, which can be procured through the regular 
Sunday-School trade, or by sending direct to the rooms of the Society : 


Rey. Dr. Willoughby and his Wine. 12mo, 458 pages. By Mrs. Mary 
Sprinc WALKER, author of ‘‘ The Family Doctor,” etc, . . . $1 50 


This thrillingly interestir ~ book depicts in a vivid manner the terrible influence exerted by 
those who stand as the servants of God, and who sanction the social custoin of wine-drinking 
It is fairand faithful tothe truth. Itisnot a bitter tirade against the church or the ministry 
On the contrary, it plainly and earnestly acknowledges that the ministry is the friend of moraliy, 
and the great bulwark of practical virtue. 


At Lion’s Mouth. remo, 410 pp. By Miss Mary Dwinect CHE Lis, author 
of ‘* Temperance Doctor,” “ Out of.-the Fire,” ‘“ Aunt ‘Dinah’s 
Pledge,” etch gy wumte tpectpeRtin ts Pie Ts eet ge Poe a RRO 


This is one of the best books ever issued, written in a simple yet thrilling and interest 
\ng style. It speaks boldly for the entire suppression of the Mquor traffic, depicting vividly tt 
misery and wrongs resulting from it. The Christian tone is most excellent, showing the neces 
sity of God’s grace in the heart to overcome temptation and the power of appetite, and the 
‘afluence which one zealous Christian can exert upon his companions and the community. 


> 


ao? 


ae 


The National Temperance Society's Books, 


Aunt Dinah’s Pledge. s12mo, 318 
ages. By Miss Mary DwiNneLi 
JHELLIS, author of ** Temperance 
Doctor,” ** Out” of the. Fire.” 

tC. oo ea er See Laas 


Aunt Dinah was an eminent Christian wo- 
man. Her pledge included swearing and smok- 
ing, as well as drinking. It saved her boys 
who lived useful lives, and died happy; an 
by quiet, yet loving and persistent work, names 
of many others were added who seemed alicost 
beyond hope of salvation. 


The Temperance Doctor. 12mo, 370 
ages. By Miss Mary Dwinecci 
HILLS: %,. » dees Maes ee 

This is a true story, replete with interest, 
and adapted to Sunday-school and family read- 
ing In it we have graphically depicted the 
sad ravages that are caused by the use ol intox- 
icating beverages; also, the blessings of Tem- 
perance, and what may be accomplished by one 
earnest soul for that reform. It ought to find 
yeader: in every household. 


Out of the Fire. remo, 420 pages. 
By Miss Mary DwinELt CHELLIS, 
author of ‘t Deacon Sim’s Pray- 
ers, ete) ee Oe Ca Sab 
lt is one of the most effective and impressive 


Temperance books eyer published. The evils 
of the drinking customs of society, and the 


blessings of sobriety and total abstinence, are 


strikingly developed in the history of various 
families in the community. 


History of a Threepenny Bit. 18mo, 


216-PASES,S /<o ns elute) soOn ae 


This 1s a thrilling story, beautifully illus- 
trated with five choice wood engravings. The 
story of little Peggy, the drunkard’s daughter, 
is toldin such a simple yet interesting manner 
that no one can read it without realizing more 
than ever before the nature and extent of in- 
temperance, and sympathizing more than ever 
with the patient, suffering victim. 1t should 
be in every Sunday-school library. 
Afopted. 18mo, 235 pages. By 

Mrs. E. J. RicHMonp, author of 

‘““ The McAllisters,”’ . . $0 60 

This book is written in an easy, pleasant 

yle, seems to be true to nature, true to itself, 
and withal is full of the Gospel and Temper- 
ance, 4 
The Red Bridge. 18mo, 321 pages. 

By Turace TALMAN, . $0 90 

We have met with few Temperance stories 
rontainin~ so many evidences of decided ability 
snd high literary excellence as this, 


The Qld Brown Pitcher. remo. 
222 pages. By the Author of 
‘*Susie’s Six Birthdays,’’ ‘* The 
Flower of the Family,” etc., $1 OU 


Beautifully Wlustrated. This admirable vol- 
ume for boys and girls, containing original 
stories bysomeof the most gifted writers for 
the young, will be eagerly welcomed by the 
children. It is adapted alike for the family 
circle and the Sabbath-school library. 


Our Parish. 18mo, 252 pages. 4 
Mrs. Emity Pearson, . . $07 


The manifold evils resulting from tne * still?’ 
to the owner’s family, as well as to the families 
of his customers, are truthfully presented, The 
characters introduced, such as are found in 
almost every good-sized village, are well por- 
trayed. We can unhesitatingly commend it, 
and bespeak for it a wide circulation. 


The Hard Master. 18mo, 278 pages 
By Mrs. J. E. McConauGuy, au- 
thor of “ One Hundred Gold Dot- 
lars,” and other popular Sunday- 
School books, . . . ... $0 85 


This interesting narrative of the temptations, 
trials, hardships, and fortunes of poor orphan 
boy ulustrates in a most striking manner the 
value of ‘‘right principles,’ especially of 
honesty truthfulness, and TEMPERANCE. 


Echo Bank. 18mo, 269 pages. B 
TeROCEE Ps Se aie $0 8b 


This.is a well-written and deeply interesting 
narrative, in which is clearly shown the suffer- 
ing and sorrow thattoo often follow and the 
dangers that attend boys and young men at 
school and at college, who suppose they can 
easily take a glass or two occasionally, with- 
out fear of ever being aught more than a mode- 
rate drinker, 


Rachel Nobie’s eee ney 18mo, 
325 pages. By Bruce EDWARDs. 
$0 90 


This is astory of thrilling interest, ably and 
eloquently told, .1d is an excellent book for 
Sunday-school libraries. It is just the book for 
the home circle, and cannot be read without 
benefiting the reader and advancing the cause 
of Tempefance. 


Gertie’s Sacrifice; or Glimpses at 
Two Lives. 18mo, 189 pages. By 
Mrs. F. D. Gacz,. - . . $0 60 
A story of great interest and power, giving 

‘“¢ glimpse at two lives,’? and show nade 

Gertie sacrificed herself asa victim of fashion, 

custom, and law. 


ve 


Re 


Um 
‘The National T: emperance Society's Books. 


Eva’s Engagement Ring. 12mo, 189 
pages. By Marcaretr E. Wix- 
MER, author of ‘* The Little Girl 
im, Bac, Cee ee ee OO 


In this interesting volume is traced the career 
of the inoderate drinker, who takes a glass in 
the name of friendship or courtesy. 


Packington Parish, and The Diver's 
Daughter, remo, 327 wages. By 
Miss M, A. Pautt, . . . $1 2! 


In this volume we see the ravages which 
the Jiquor traffic caused when introduced in a 
hitherto quiet village, and how a minister’s eyes 
were at Jength opened to its evils, though he 
had always declared wine to be a “good 
creature of God,’’ meant to be used in modera- 
tion, 


Qld Times. 312mo. By Miss M.D. 
CuELLIis, author of ** The Tem- 
erance Doctor,” ‘‘Out of the 
ire,” ‘‘ Aunt Dinah’s Pledge,” 
**At Lion’s Mouth,” etc., . $1 25 
It discusses the whole subject of moderaie 
drinking ja the history of a New England vil- 
age. The incidents, various and amusing, are 
all facts, and the characters nearly all drawn 
from real life. The five deacons which figure 
so conspicuously actually lived and acted as re- 
presented, 


John Bentley’s Mistake. 18mo, 
177 pages. By Mrs. M. A. Hort, 
$0 60 


It takes an important place among our tem- 
perance books, taking an earnest, bold stand 
against the use of cider as a beverage, proving 
that it is often the first step toward stronger 
drinks, forming an appetite for the more fiery 
liquids which cannot easily be quenched. 


Nothing to Drink. 12M0, 400 
ages. By Mrs. J. McNair 
recur. author of ‘*The Best 
Fellow in the World,” *‘Jug-or- 
Not,’ *‘ How Could He Escape ?” 
BEI ns ek ee ot 


The story is of light-house keeper and 
thrilling adventures at sea, being nautical, 
scientific, and partly statistical, written in a 
charming, thrilling, and convincing manner. 
It goes ont of tho ordinary line entirely, most 
of the characters being portraits, ite scenery 
all from absolute facts, every scientific and 
natural-history statement a verity, the sea in- 
cidents from actual experience from marine 
lisasters for the last ten years. 


Nettie Loring. 12mo, 352 pages. 
Be Mrs Genes Dowie, «$i oh 


It graphically describes the doings of sev- 
eral young ladies who resolved to use their 
influence on the side of temperance and banish 
wine from their entertainments, the scorn they 
excited, and the good results which followed, 


The Fire Fighters. r2mo, 294 pages. 
By Mrs. J. E. McConauGuy, au- 
thor of ** The Hard Master,” 

$1 25 
An admirable story, showing how a number 
of young lads banded themselves into a society 


to fight against Alcohol, and the good they did 
in the community. 


The Jewelled Serpent. 12mo, 271 
pages. By Mrs. E. J. RicHmMonp, 
author of ‘* Adopted,” ‘** The Mc- 
Wlisters,2" CLEA gicletk ete 1 OO 


The story ix written earnestly. The charac- 
ters are well delineated, and taken from the 
wealthy asd fashionable portion ofa large city. 
The evils which flow trom fashionable drink- 
ing are well portrayed, and also the danger 
arising from the use of intoxicants when used as 
medicine, forming an appetite which fast-ns 
itself with a deadly hold upon its vietim. 


The Hole in the Bag, and Other 
Stories. By Mrs. J. P. BALLARD 
author of ‘**The Broken Rock,’ 
“Lift a Little,” etc. remo, $1 60 


A collection of well-written stories by this 
most popular author on the subject’ of temper- 
ance, inculcating many valuable lessons in the 
minds of its readers. 


Tho Glass Cable. xr2mo, 288 pages. 
By MarGcaret E. WILMER, au- 
thor of ‘*The Little Girl in 
Black,” ‘‘Eva’s Engagement 
nig setae se na ee Sl teo 


The style of this book is good, the characters 
well selected, and its temperance and religious 
truths most excellent, The moral of the story 
shows those who sneer at a child’s pledge, 
comparing its strength to a glass cable, that it 
is in many cases strong enough to brave the 
storms and temptations of a whole lifetime. 


Fred’s Hard Fight. 12M0, 334 
pages. By Miss Marion How- 
BRT Sle aes te ides OL 


While it shows the trials which a young lad 
endured through the temptations and entice- 
ments offered him by those opposed to bis firm 
temperance and religious principles, and 
warns the reader against the use of every kind 
of alcoholic stimulant, it points also to Jesus, 
the only true source of strength, urging all ta 
accept the promises of strength and salvation 
offered to every one who will seek it, 


The Dumb Traitor. 12mo, 336 pp. 
By MARGARET E, WILMER, $1 25 


Intensely interesting, ‘showing how the 
prospects of a well-to-do New England family 
were blighted throngh the introduction of @ 
box of wine, given in friendship, used as me 
dicine, but proving a dumb traitor in the end, 


The Nattonal Temperance Soctety’s Books. 


1 atte Tavern, and What it 
rought, 312mo, 252 pages. By 
J. WiLt1AM Van Namegs, . $1 00 


It shows the sad results which followed the 
introduction of a Tavern and Bar in a beanti- 
fuland quiet country town, whose inhabitants 
had hitherto lived in peace and enjoyment 
The contrast is too plainly presented to fail to 
produce an impression on the reader, making 
all more desirous to abolish the sale of all in- 
toxicants 


Roy’s Search; or, mye BNaek panes 
12mM0, 364 pages. y HELEN C, 
PEARSON, . pits She EDAD 


This new Temperance book is one of the 
most interesting ever published—written in a 
fresh, sparkling style, especially adapted to 
please the boys, anid contains so much that 
vill benefit as well as amuse and interest that 
ve wish all the boys in the land might read it. 


How Could He Escape? 12mo, 324 
ges. By Mrs. J. NcNair 
RIGHT, author of ‘ Jug-Or- 

Not.” Illustrated with ten en- 
pISmDe Es designed by the au- 
TOK eer e tn ates pL 


This is a true tale, and one of the writer’s 
best productions. It shows the terrible effects 
of even one glass of intoxicating liquor upon 
the system of one unable to resist its influences, 
and the necessity of gracein the beart to resist 
ea pai and overcome the appetite for strong 
drink. 


The Best Fellow in the World. 
12mo, 352 pages. By Mrs. J. 
McNair WriGut, author of ** Jug- 
Or-Not,”” ‘‘ How Could He Es- 
cape?” ‘* Priest and Nun,” $14 25 
‘¢Fhe Best Fellow,’? whose course is here 
ortrayed, is one of a very large class who are 

Eaaesy and ruinel simply because they are 
such * good fellows,’ To all such the volume 
epeaksin thrilling tones of warning, shows the 
inevitable consequences of indulying in strong 
drink, and the necessity of divine grace in the 
heart to interpose and save trom ruin. 





Frank Spencer’s Kule of Life. 
18mo0, 180 pages. By Joun W 
Kirton, author of ** Buy Your 


Own Cherries,” ** Four Pillars of 

Temperance,” etc., etc., . $0 50 

This is written in the author’s best style, 
waking an interesting and attractive story tor 
ehildren. 

Work and Reward. 1Smo, 183 pp. | 
By Mrs. M. A. Hott, $06 50 | 
Itshowsthatnot the smallest effort to do | 

good is lostsight of by the all-knowing Father, 

and that faith and prayer must gecompany all 
temperance efforts. 


4 


The Pitcher of Cool Water. 18mo, 
180 pages. By T. S. ARTuHuR, 
author of ** Tom Blinn’s Temper- 
ance Society,” ‘Ten Nights in a 
Bar-room,” etc., . . $0 50 


This little book consists of a series of Tem 
perance stories, handsomely illustrated, written 
in Mr. ARTHUR’s best style, and is altogether 
one of the best books which can be placed in 
the hands of children. Every Sunday-school 
library should possess it. 


Little Girl in Black. s12mo, 212 
pages. By Marcaret E. WI - 
MER, . te . $0 90 


Her strong faith in God, who sbe believes 
will reclaim an erring father, is a lesson to the 
reader, old as well as young. 


Temperance Anecdotes. 12mo0, 288 
pages, a: . $1 00 
This new book of Temperance Anecdotes, 

edited by Gzorcr W. Buneay, contains near- 

ly four hundred Anecdotes, Witticisu.e, Jokes, 

Conundrums, ete , original and_ selected, and 

will meet a want long felt and often expressed 

by a very large number of the numerous friends 

o! the cause in the land. The book is hand- 

somely illustrated with twelve choice wood 

engravings. 


The Temperance Speaker. By J. 
N. STEARNS, . ee . $0 75 


The book contains 288 pages of Declamations 
and Dialogues suitable for Sunday and Day- 
schools, Bands cf Hope, and Temperance Or- 
ganizations. It consists of choice selections 
of prose and poetry, both new and old, trom 
the Temperance orators and writers of the 
country, many of which have been written ex- 
pressly for this work. 


The McAllisters. 18mo, 211 pages. 
By Mrs. E.J. Ricumonp,. $0 650 
It shows the ruin brought on a family by the 

father’s intemperate habite, and the strong 

faith and trust of the wife in that Friend above 
who alone gives strength to bear our earthly 
12mo, 


trials. 

The Seymours. 231 pares. 
By Miss L. Bates, . . $1 06 
A simple story, showing how arefined and 

cultivated family are brought low through the 

drinking habits of the father, their joy and sor- 
row as he reforms only to fall again, and his 
final happy release in a distant city. 


Zoa Rodman. 12mo, 262 pages. 
By Mrs, E.J. Richmonp, $1 00 


Adapted more especially to young girls’ 
reading, showing the influence they wie 
society, and their responsibility for much of 
its drinking usages. 


The National Temperance Soctety’s Books. 


Time will Tell. xr2zmo, 307 pases. 
By Mrs. Witson js. 0 $100 
A Temperance tale of thrilling interest and 

unexceptionable moral and religious tone. 1 
is full of incidents and characters of everyday 
life, while its lessons are plainly and forcibly 
set before the reader. The pernicious results 
of the drinking usages in the family and social 
cirele are plainly set forth. 


Philip Eckert’s Struggles and 
Triumphs. 18mo, 216 pages. By 
the author of ‘‘ Margaret Clair,” 

$0 60 


This interesting narrative of a noble, manly 
boy: in an intemperate home, fighting with the 
wrong and babeling for the right, should be 
read by every childin the land. 


Jug-Or-Not. 12mo0, 346 pages. By 
Mrs. J. McNair WRriGHT, author 
of fonn and the Demijohn,” 
‘‘Almost a Nun,” ‘* Priest and 
Num?’ ete.,+ 1.052 aa ee tebe 


It is one of her best books, and treats of the 
physical and hereditary effects of drinking in a 
clear, plain, aud familiar style, adapted to 
vopular reading, and which should be read by 
all classes in the community, and find a place 
in every Sunday-school library. 


The Broken Rock. 18mo, 139 pages. 
By Krona, author of ** Lift a 
leittlesrete: 2 . $0 50 


It beautifully illustrates the silent aud holy 
influence of a meek and lowly spirit upon the 
heartless rumseller until the rocky heart was 
broken, 


Andrew Douglass. 18mo, 232 pages, 


$0 75 


A new Teinperance story for Sunday-schvols, 
written in a lively, energetic, and popular 
atyle, adapted to the Sabbath-school aud the 
family circle. 


Vow at the Bars. 18mo, 108 pages. 
$0 40 


It contains four short tales, illustrating four 
important principles connected with the Tem- 
erance movement, andis well atapted for the 
amily circle and Sabbath-school libraries. 


Job Tufton’s Rest. x12mo, 332 
pages, . Maas 2 KIL Oe 
A story of life’s struggles, written by the 
gifted author, CLara Luoas Baurour, depict- 
ing most skilfully and trathfully many a life- 
struggle with the demon of intemperance 


Humpy Dumpy. r1amo,316pp. By 
» Rev. J.J. Dawa, . . . . $1 26 


In this book, a corner ery is the source 
of much evil, and s mission-echool, by ita 
Christian teachings, the means of rescuing 
many from the downward path, 





Frank “ldfield; or, Lost and Founa, 
12mo, 4o8 pages, . . . . $1 50 


This excellent story received the prize of 
£100 in England, out of eighty-three manu- 
scripts submitted; and by an arrangement 
with the publishers we publish it in this coun- 
try with all the original illustrations. It is 
admirably adapted to Sunday-school libraries, 


Tom Blinn’s Temperance Society, 
and other Stories. s1zmo, 316 
DaSSsornwer.’. oes $1 26 
This is the title of a new book written by 

T. S. AntHuR, the well-known author of ‘‘ Ten 

Nights in a Bar-room,’’ and whose fame as an 

author should bespeak for it a wide circulation. 

It is written in Mr. ArtHUR’s best style, com 

posed of aseries o tales adapted to every famil, 

and library in the land. 


The Harker Family. 12mo, 336 
pages. By Emity THompson, 
#1 25 


A ninple, spirited, and interesting narrative, 
written in a style especially attractive, depice- 
ing the evils that arise from intemperance, and 
the blessings that followed the earnest efforts 
ot those who sought to win others to the paths 
of total abstinence. Illustrated with three en- 
gravings. The book will please all. 

Come Home, Mother. 18mo, “43 
pages. By Netsiz Brook.  Il- 
lustrated with six choice engrav- 
Wigs) See, A See ot $056 


A most effective and interesting book, de- 
scribing the downward course of the mother, 
and giving an account of the sad scenes, but et- 
fectual endeavors, of the little one in bringing 
her mother back to friends, and leading her to 
God. It should be read by everybody. 


Tim’s Troubles. 12mo, 350 nee 
By Miss M. A. PauLt,. . $1 50 
This is the second Prize Book of the United 

Kingdom Band of Hope Union, reprinted in this 

country with all the original illustrations. It 

{s the companion of ‘‘ Frank Oldfleld,”’ written 

in a high tone, and will be found a valuable 

addition to our Temperance literature. 


The Drinking Fountain Stories. 
I2mo, 192 pages,. . . . $1 06 
This book of illustrated stories for children 

contains articles from some of the best writer 

for children in America, and is beautifully il- 

lustrated with forty choice wood engravings. 


The White Rose. By Mary J. Pee 
es. 16mo, 320 pages, . . $1 2 


The gift of a simple white rose was the means 
of leading those who cared for it to the Savtour. 
How it was done 1s very pleasantly told, ac 

lso the wrongs resulting {on the use of stem 
rink forcibly shown. 


The National Temperance Soctety’s Books. 


Esther Maxwell’s Mistake. 1S8mo, 
236 pages. By Mrs. E. N. Jan- 
vieR, author of ‘‘ Andrew pore 
lass,”’ ; . $1 00 


This book is full of Gospel truth, and writ- 
ten in @ simple but earnest style, showing the 
utter absurdity of endeavoring to forget trou- 
ble by the use of strong drink, which Esther, 
like many others, found soon formed habits yot 
easily broken. Her sudden awakening to this 
fact, and turning to her Saviour for pardon and 
help to renounce the temptation to drink, 
make one of the most touching narratives 
ever written. 


Wealth and Wine. r2mo, 320 pp. 
By Miss Mary Dwinatt CHELLIS, 
author of **Temperance Doc- 
tor,” ** At Lion’s Mouth,” $1 25 


This book is written in her best style, show- 
ing the deception of the wine-cup and the 
power of woman’s influence, together with the 
evil influence of social and mo:lerate drinking. 
Its moral and Christian tone is excellent, and 
none can fail to be profited by its teachings. 


The Life Cruise of Captain Bess 
Adams. 12mo, 413 pages. By 
Mrs. J. McNair WriGHT, author 
of Nothing to Drink, etc., $1 50 


A sea-story, filled with thrilling adventures 
on the deep, and intensely interesting scenes 
on land in the midst of a quaint old sea-coast 
town, proving effectually that alcoholic drinks 
are not needed on shipboard or on land, and 
should be absolutely banished. The brave 
Christian character of Captain Adams and the 
heroisin of his daughter, Bess, together with 
the pure religious tone pervading every page, 
make this one of the most interesting fons 
ever written, 


The Model Landlord. 1&8mo. By 
Mrs. M. A. Ho ct, author of 
‘*John  Bentley’s _Mistake,’’ 
‘* Work and Reward,”. . $0 60 


It showa how a “model landlord’? who 
keeps a gilded saloon for fashionable wine- 
drinkers, though he may attend church, give 
money to the poor, and circulate in the ke first 
society,’? may be the greatest instrument im 
leading the young down to destruction, 


Miscellaneous Publications. 


The Bases of the Temperance Re- 
form. 12mo, 224 pages. By Rev. 
_ Dawson Burns, . $1 00 
This ‘is an English prize essay, which took 
the second prize under the liberal offer of 
James Teare for the best essay on the entire 
temperance question. 


Bacchus Dethroned. x2mo, 248 
pages. By Freperick Powe Lt, 
4 $1 00 


This is an English prize essay, written in re- 
= to 2 prize offered by James Teare, of 
ingland, for the best ge ieee essay. The 
question is p:esented in all its phases, physio- 
logical, social, political, moral, and ieli- 
gious. It is very con:prehensive. 


The National Temperance Orator. 
12m0, 288 pp. By Miss L. Pesnry, 
. $1 00 
This ts tseued in response to the many ur- 
geut calls for a book similar to the ‘‘ New 
Temperance Speaker,’? used widely through- 
out the country. Is contains articles by the 
best temperance writers of the day, poems, 
recitations, readings, dialogues, and choice 
extracts from speeches from some of the ablest 
temperance speakers in the country, for the 
use of all temperance workers, Loiges, Divi- 
sions, Bands of Hope, etc., etc. iy 


Bugle Notes for the Temperance 
Army. Price, paper covers, 80 
cents; boards, . . $0 35 
A new collection of Songs, Quartete, and 

Glees, for the use of all Temperance gather- 


ngs, glee clubs, etc., together with the Odes of 
the Sons of Temperance and Good Templars, 


. . . 


Temperance Chimes. Price, in 
paper covers, 30 cents, single 
copies; $26 per hundred. Price, 
in board covers, 35 cents; per 
hundred, . . $80 00 
A Temperance Hymn and Tune-Book of 128 

pages, comprising & great variety oF Glees, 

Songs, and Hynms designed for the use of Ten 

perance Meetings and Organizations, Bands of 

Hope, Glec Clubs, and the Home Circle Many 

of the Hymns have been written expressly for 

this book by sowie of the best writers in the 
country. 


Bound Volumes of Sermons, $1 50 


Seventeen sernrons delivered upon the invi- 
tation of The National Temperance Society, 
and published in the National Series. have all 
been bound in one volume. making 400 page: 
of the best temperance matter of the kind ever 

ublisbed. ‘The sermons are by Revs. Henry 
Ward Beecher, T L. Cuyler, T. De Witt Tal- 
mage, 4 B, Dunn, John Hall, J. P. Newman, 
J. W. Mears, C. D. Foss, J. Romeyn Berry, 
Herrick Johnson, Peter Stryker, C. H. Fowler, 
H C. Fish, H. We Warren, S. H. Tyng, and 
W. M. Taylor. 


Text-Book of Temperance. By 
Dr. F. R. LEEs, 1 50 
We can also furnish the above book, which is 

divided into the following parts: 1. Temper- 

ance asa Virtue. % The Chemical History of 

Alcohol. 3 The Dieteties of Temperance. 4. 

The Pathology of Iutemperance. 5, The Medi- 

cal Question. 6 Temperance in Relation to 

the Bible. 7. Historical. 8. The National 

Question and the Remedy. 9. The Philosophy 

of Temperance. 


. . 


bas 


The National Temperance Soctety's Books. 


Forty Years’ Fight with the Drink 
Demon. s12mo, 4oo pages. Ky 
CHARLES JEweTT, M.D., . $1 50 
This volume comprises the history of Dr 


Jewett’s public and private labors from 1826 to | 
the present time, with sketches of the most | 


popular and distinguished advocates of the 
cause in its earlier stages. Italso records the 
results of forty years’ observation, study, and 
reflections upon the use of intoxicating drinks 
and drugs, and suggestions as to the best 
methods o! advancing the cause, etc. The book 
is handsomely bound, and contains flastrated 
portraits of early champions of the cause. . 


Drops of Water. 12mo, 133 pages. 


By Miss Etta WHEELER, $0 75 

Anew book of fifty-six Temperance Poems 
by this young and talented authoress, suitable 
tor reading in Temperance Societies, Lodge 
Rooms, Divisions, etc. The simplicity of man- 
ner, beauty of expression, earnestness of 
thought, and nobleness of sentiment running 
through all of them make this book a real 
gem, worthy a place by the side of any of the 
poetry in the country. 


Bound Volume of Tracts. 500 
PREES, . a = Se ae 


This volume contains al] the four, eight, and 
twelve page tracts published by the National 
Temperance Society, and coinprises Argu- 
ments, Statistics, Sketches, and Essays, which 
make it an invaluable collection for every 
friend of the Temperance Reform, 


Bound Volume of Tracts. No. 2. 
9384 PPp., . . . . . . . $i 00 


Containing all the twenty-four and forty- 
eight page pamphlets and prize essays publish- 
ed by the National Temperance Society since 
ite organization, 


Scripture Testimony Against In- 
toxicating Wine. By Rev. Wm. 
Rircuie, of Scotland, . . $0 60 


An unanswerable refutation of the theory 
tat the Scriptures favor the idea of the 
use of intoxicating wine as a beverage. It 
takes the different kiniis of wines mentioned in 
the Scriptures, investigates their specific na- 
ture, and shows wherein they differ. 


Zoological Temperance Convention. 

By Rev. Epwarp Hircucock, 
YD.D., of Amherst College, $0 75 
_ This fable gives an interesting and entertain- 
pinta sary a Convention of Animals held 
in Central Africa, and reports the sszeshes 
made on the occasion. aan ee 


Delayan’s Consideration of the Tem- 
perance Argement and History, 

$1 5u 
This condensed and comprehensive work con- 

tains Essays and Selections from different au- 
thors, collected and edited by Epwarp C. Dr- 

LAVAN, Ksq., andis one of the most valuable 

text-books on the subject of Temperance ever 

issued, 

Bible Rule of Temperance; or, 
Total Abstinence from all Intox- 
icating Drinks. By Rev. GeorGe 
DGRPRIEUD AI) Dose ei HULU 


This is the ablest and most reliable work 
which has been issued on the subject. The im- 
morality of the us , sale, ani manufacture of 
intoxicating liquors as a beverage is cons dere 
in the light ot the scriptures, and the will and 
law of God clearly presented 
Aleohol: Its Nature and Effects. 

By Cuarces A. Storey, M.D., 

$O 99 

This is a thoroughly scientific work, yet 
| written in afresh, vigorous, and popular style, 
/in language that tie masses can wuderstand. 
It consists of ten lectures carefully prepared, 
and is an entirely new work by onu ainply com- 
petent to present the subject. 

Four Pillars of Temperance. By 

Joun W. Kirton, .. . $0 75 


The Four Pillars are, Reason, Science, Scrip- 
ture, and Experience. The book is argumenta- 
tive, historical, and statistical, and the facts, 
appeals, and arguinents are presented in a most 
convincing and masterly manner. 
Communion Wine; or, Bible Tem- 

erance. By Rev. Wititiam M. 
HAYER. Paper, 20 cents; cloth, 
$0 50> 

An unanswerable argument against the use 
of intoxicating wine at Communion, and pre- 
senting the Bible argument in favor of total 
abstinence. 

Bible Wines; ; or, The Laws of Fer- 
mentation and Wines of the 
Ancients. 12mo, 139 pages. By 
Rev. Wn. Patron, D.D. Pape:. 
$0 cts.; cloth, . . . . $0 60 
It presents the whole matter of Bible Tem- 

perance and the wines of ancient times in 8 
new, clear, and satis'actory manner, develop- 
ing the laws of fermentation, and giving a large 
number of references and statistica never before 
collected, showing conclusively the existence of 
unfermented wine in the elden time. 

Alcohol: Its Place and Power, by 
James MiLver; and The Use and 
Abuse of Tobacco, by Joun Li- | 

ren eer tt eal e ac aU 





The Nattonal Temperance Society's Books. 
® 


w 
The Medical Use of Alcohol. Three 
Lectures by James EpMmunpDs, 
M.D., Member of the Royal Col- 
lege of Physicians of London, 
Senior Physician to the London 
Temperance Hospital. r2mo, 96 
pp. Paper cover, 25 cents; 
cloth etch eters 050 
Dr. Edmunds is one of the ablest physicians 


of England, has thoroughly studied the whole 
question from a Medical stand-point, and not 


in the tnterest of the cause of Temperance. It 
is, however, clearly shown that Science and 
Temperance both point in one direction, and 
this book should find its way into every house- 
hold fn the land. 
The three Lectures are as follows: 
1. The Medical Use of Alcohol. 
2. Stimulants for Women and Nursing 
Mothers, 
3. The Dietetic Use of Alcohol, 


It isa full and reliable exp..{tion from one 
of the ablest physicians of the world, and we 
hope it will be widely circulated. 


The Youth’s Temperance Banner 


The National Temperance Society and Publication House publish a beautifully illustrated 
Monthly Paper, especially adapted to children and youth, Sunday-school and Juvenile Tem- 
perance Organizations. Each number contains several choice engravings, a piece of music, anda 
great variety of articles from the pens of the best writer@for children in America. It should be 
placed in the hands of every chitd in the land. 


TERMS IN ADVANCE, INCLUDING POSTAGE: 


Bingle copy, one year........ «6.90 3d Thirty copies to one address....$4 06 
Bight, to one eddrecs... 032 1-08 | Forty. ERE SE se 40 
Ten si sed doo ee see ape teen OO Fift - wee nwle nace a OnO 


Fic Ve 6 
Twenty, “ aT TM idecek coctnvesee AO Onehundred, On Petcccccnvrcesstlolun 


THE NATIONAL TEMPERANCE ADVOCATE. 


The National Temperance Society and Publication House publish a 
Monthly Temperance Paper, the object of whichis to promote the interests 
of the cause of Temperance by disseminating light from every quarter upon 
its moral, social, financial, and scientific bearings. The best talent in the land 
will be secured forits editors and contributors. Terms in advance, includin 
postage, one doliar and ten cents a year. 10 copies, to one address, $10; 
oe one address, $18. All over at the last-named rate, which {ncludes 





Twenty-four Page Pamphlets. (With Covers.) 


Five Cents each; 60 Cents per Doz. 


Medicinal Drinking. 

Drinking Usages of Soclety! 
Fruits of the Liquor Traffic. 

Is Alcohol a Necessary of Life? 
A High Fence of Fifteen Bare 
The Son of My Friend. 


Band of Hope Supplies, 


ee Alconol Food? 

Physiological Action of Alcohol, 
Adalteration of Liquors. 

Will the Coming Man Drink Wine? 
pry and Mystery of a Glass of Ale, 
thle Teetotalism. 


Manual, Per dozen, $0 60 Juvenile Temperance Speaker, - - 
cp deny Catechism. Per dozen, 60 Illuminated Temperance Cards. Set of 
Band of Hope Melodies. Paper, 10 ten, - = 


Juvenile Temperance Pledges, Per100, 3 00 


. Enameled, $1 25 
Bend of Hope Badges) Bnamcllotss Certificates of Membership. Per 100, - 3 00 


r dozen; 12cents singly. Piain, 
% per dozen; 10 pas singly. The Temperance Speaker, - = -_ = 
ilver and Enamelled, 50 cents Catechism on Alcohol. By Miss Juha 
each, Colman. Per dozen, ot aah 


Sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price. Address 
Address JN. STEARNS, Publishing Agent, 
58 Reade Sireet, New York. 





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